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THE  WORKER'S  MIND  IN  CROWDED  BRITAIN 


BT 
WHITING  WILLIAMS 

AtTTHOB  OF  "WHAT'b  ON  THZ  WOBKEB'b  MUTd' 


WITH  ILLUSTRATIONS 


NEW  YORK 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 

1921 


COPTBIOHT,    1921,    BT 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER'S  SONS 


PubUshed  October.  1921 


THE  SCRIBNER  PREM 


FOREWORD 

Nobody  could  have  been  more  surprised  than  myself  to 
find  that  the  months  of  1919  spent  in  the  labor  gangs  of 
America  made  aknost  unavoidable  a  few  months  of  1920 
in  the  labor  gangs  of  Great  Britain. 

In  this  wise: 

Following  the  return  to  white-collared  ways,  the  country 
gave  surprising  approval  to  the  following  "Big  Four" 
factors  which  lay,  in  my  belief,  at  the  bottom  of  the 
labor  problem  here  in  our  own  country: 

I.  The  huge  importance  to  the  working  man — and  that 
means  to  us  all — of  that  prayer  of  the  industrial  era:  "Give 
us  this  day  our  daily  Job ! "  The  job  it  is  which  affords  to 
each  of  us  the  platform  upon  which  we  stand  as  members 
of  the  modern  industrial  commonwealth.  The  job  it  is 
which  connects  each  of  us  up  with  the  doings  of  others  in 
a  way  to  make  us  important  to  them  and  so  to  ourselves. 
The  job  it  is  which  serves  as  a  crank-shaft  by  which  we  get 
the  satisfaction  of  seeing  the  forces  of  our  own  hves  geared 
up  with  the  forces  of  others  for  tumhag  the  wheels  of  the 
world's  work — and  so  for  finding  ourselves  not  altogether 
valueless.  Job  gone? — then  the  rightness  of  the  rest  of 
the  circle  of  our  interests  gives  us  little  satisfaction — in 
spite  of  such  testimony  as  that  of  the  hopeful  wife  who 
got  out  to  inspect  the  rear  tire  and  reported,  "Well,  John, 
it  is  quite  flat  at  the  bottom.    But  the  rest  of  it  is  fine  I" 

II.  The  importance  of  the  part  played  by  our  bodies, 
as  the  result  of  their  effort  to  adapt  themselves  to  the  con- 
ditions of  working  and  living  imposed  by  the  job.  Espe- 
cially the  power  for  industrial  and  civic  evil  possessed 
and  wielded  by  those  unheavenly  twins  of  "Tiredness  and 


vi  FOREWORD 

Temper" — the  TNT  that  causes  so  many  explosions  in 
the  trenches  of  both  the  family  and  the  factory  life. 

III.  The  importance  of  the  mental  conditions  of  the 
man  on  the  job — the  threat  of  wide-spread  evil  to  be  fomid 
in  the  huge  volmne  of  misunderstanding  between  modem 
employer  and  modern  employee. 

IV.  The  vital  importance  of  what  can  be  called  the 
spiritual  conditions  which  all  of  us  hope  to  find  wrapped 
up  in  our  job:  the  deep-down  mainspring  of  our  desire  to 
"be  somebody"  and  to  "count"  most  of  all  by  reason  of 
the  thing  we  do — to  show  ourselves  men  by  virtue  of  show- 
ing ourselves  work-men. 

Something  like  these  four  factors,  so  it  has  appeared  to 
me,  furnish  a  means  of  breaking  up  the  problem  of  indus- 
trial relations  and  so  of  locating  the  particular  cause  of  the 
difficulty  in  any  one  case.  When  a  man  feels  that  his  body, 
mind,  and  spirit  are  all  connected  up  with  each  other  and 
with  that  crank-shaft  of  the  job,  then  he  laughs  the  laugh 
of  joy.  Then,  too,  he  laughs  the  laugh  of  scorn  not  only 
at  the  agitator  but  also  at  those  who  would  try  to  persuade 
him  that  work  is  a  cruel  hang-over  from  the  days  when  our 
common  ancestor  was  thrust  out  of  the  Garden  of  Do- 
nothing  for  earning  his  bread  with  the  sweat  of  his  brow. 

At  least  something  like  that,  I  am  sure,  is  true  for  America 
and  Americans. 

But  is  that  because  we  are  Americans  or  because  we 
are  humans? 

To  answer  the  question  required  the  rather  reluctant 
donning  of  the  overalls  and  the  undergoing  of  the  discom- 
forts of  the  labor  gang  in  some  other  country. 

To  what  extent  the  experiences  reported  in  these  pages 
answer  the  question  which  carried  me  into  them — and  to 
what  extent  they  appear  to  make  it  desirable  to  try  to  get 
the  feelings  of  the  workers  of  France  or  Germany,  or  Italy 
and  Spain — the  reader  may  decide. 


CONTENTS 

PART  I— WITH  THE  WORKERS 

CHAFTIB  VAOa 

I.    Into  Strange  Waters — fbom  a  London  Dock    ...  3 

II.    By  the  Smelters  and  Stoves  of  South  Wales  ...  26 

III.  "Back  to  the  Mines"  and  the  "Bolshies"!     ...  61 

IV.  "What's  the  Matter  with  Glasgow?"    .....  123 

V.    With  the  'Ands  on  Smelting  Stage,  Cinder  Pit  and 

Cast  Bed 170 

VI.    Midst  the  Miners  and  Machinists  of  the  Mild  Mid- 
lands         205 

VII.    Living  the  Double  Life  m  London    .     .  -  .     .     .     .  234 

VIII.    The  Worst  Job  yet 275 

PART  n-ONE  INTERPRETATION 

IX.    f'FuLL  Up!" 285 

X.    "Fed  Up!"    .     . .     .     .     .294 

XI.    How  Many  Jobs  to  a  Nation? 301 

XII.    The    Domestic    Pay    Envelope    and    "International 

Creative  Evolution" 308 

XIII.    Can  We  Get  "the  Air"  to  the  "Working  Faces"  in 

the  World  Factory  Mine?  - 318 


vu 


ILLUSTRATIONS 

Over  200,000  of  Britain's  1,200,000  coal-miners  live  in  the 

famous  South  Wales  District Frontispiece 

TACINQ  FAGB 

Dockers  unloading  copra  or  cocoanut-meat  for  making  oil,  cattle- 
food,  and  oleomargarine  at  a  London  dock 18 

f'They  tells  us  as  'ow  we  should  sive  our  money.  So  'ere  we  are !" .      18 

Blast-fumaces  of  this  hand-charged  type  are  now  being  replaced  by 

machine-charged  furnaces  of  newer  and  larger  type  ....      28 

Salt  firemen  of  Northern  England 94 

f'E  been  now,"  his  wife  said,  "as  good  a  mon  as  'e  been  bawd  be- 
fore— awnd  no  one  could  say  more  than  thot !" 94 

f  Dirty  Dick's  my  name,  but  I'm  not  dirty-minded"      ....      94 

A  saloon  or  "pub"  in  London's  East  End  as  a  "neighborhood 

centre  "  to  which  the  babe  in  arms  is  becoming  accustomed  early    134 

Children  in  a  crowded  Glasgow  district 134 

Crowds  listening  to  the  smooth-tongued  salesmen  of  "riot,  racing,  or 
religion — ^representatives  of  a  better  chance  in  either  this  world 
or  the  world  to  come" 168 

The  crowd  waits  as  the  bookies  mark  up  their  preferences  at  the 

week-end  whippet  races 168 

Separating  the  "pigs"  from  the  "sow"  in  a  Middlesbrough  "cast- 
bed"     182 

The  author  as  he  is  and  as  he  was  when  in  search  of  work  in  Britain    266 


PART  I 
WITH  THE  WORKERS 


WITH  THE  WORKERS 

CHAPTER  I 

INTO  STRANGE  WATERS— FROM  A  LONDON  DOCK 

Whitechapel,  East  End,  London, 
June  29,  1920. 

The  most  surprising  thing  is  the  interest  every  one  here 
shows  in  my  plan,  queer  and  strange  though  it  seems  to  them. 
The  head  of  a  group  of  manufacturers  has  ah-eady  given 
his  expert  approval  of  the  idea  to  begin  in  the  South  Wales 
tin-plate  and  coal  districts;  go  thence  to  the  Clyde  bank, 
near  Glasgow,  where  the  very  numerous  radical  workers 
are  taken  much  more  seriously  than  their  less  active  though 
louder-talking  comrades  among  the  Welsh  workers;  ending 
up  with  the  more  conservative  and  newer  steel  centre  of 
the  Briti^  Pittsburgh,  Middlesbrough,  near  Newcastle,  and 
finally  the  older  Sheffield  district.  This  adviser  is  a  college 
man  and  seems  to  feel  that  the  freemasonry  of  college  men 
— evidently  more  marked  over  here — ^would  require  him  to 
help  me  if  nothing  else.  In  that  connection  he  said  yester* 
day  that  the  EngUsh  worker  is  likely  to  be  suspicious  of  me 
because: 

"It  will  seem  a  bit  odd  to  them,  you  know,  that  your 
friends  are  willing  to  let  you  go  so  low.  That  wouldn't  be 
done  over  here.  A  decent  job,  you  see,  would  be  found  for 
you  by  some  one  if  for  nothing  else  than  to  save  a  fellow 
member  of  one's  own  class." 

But  he  seemed  to  think  that  I  might  meet  all  that  by 
letting  on  that  I  was  a  hard  drinker ! 

8 


4  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Similarly  the  head  of  a  big  firm  of  engineers  and  equippers 
of  steel  plants  was  not  at  all  of  the  suspicious  sort  that 
some  friends  at  home  had  made  me  think  I  might  en- 
counter: 

"Your  plan  of  first-hand  study  of  this  labor  problem 
is  odd  enough,  but  it  certainly  has  enormous  possibilities, 
and  I  want  to  help  every  bit  I  can."  Then  he  proceeded 
to  ask  if  I  wouldn't  do  him  the  favor  of  doing  a  few  days' 
work  among  the  bricklayers  who  are  in  his  employ  build- 
ing a  big  glass  plant,  and  who  are  said  to  represent  one  of 
the  hardest  trades  to  get  along  with  in  the  empire.  Inas- 
much as  the  job  is  near  by,  in  London,  it  seems  a  proper 
way  of  repajdng  the  various  courtesies  he  will  extend  dur- 
ing the  summer. 

In  one  sense  this  country  seems  to  be  in  a  very  bad  way 
in  this  matter  of  labor,  in  another  not  so  bad.  The  sul> 
ject  does  not  seem  on  people's  tongues  to  the  same  extent 
as  in  America.  The  fact  that  it  is  all  put  over  into  pohtics 
appears  to  give  the  man  on  the  street  the  idea  that  it  is 
by  way  of  being  worked  out.  Then  the  fact  that  the  unions 
are  so  much  on  the  job  further  supports  the  idea  that  it 
will  somehow  take  care  of  itself  without  the  ordinary  citi- 
zen's bothering. 

"Practically  every  one  of  our  workers  is  in  some  union 
or  other,"  was  the  way  an  official  of  an  iron  and  steel  manu- 
facturers' association  put  it.  "With  every  one  of  these 
unions  where  it  is  at  all  feasible  we  have  had  for  the  last 
thirty  years  an  agreement  to  pay  wages  on  the  basis  of  ton- 
nage, and  also  on  a  sliding  scale  according  to  the  selling 
price  of  the  product.  In  the  case  of  the  one  sohtary  strike 
of  any  consequence  in  these  thirty  years,  everything  was 
settled  by  the  estabhshment  of  this  rule  of  sUding  scale. 
This  the  makers  had  heretofore  held  out  against  in  that 
particular  connection.  Since  then  there  has  been  no  trouble 
anywhere  of  any  size — that  is,  with  the  steel  men.     We  do 


INTO  STRANGE  WATERS  5 

have  trouble  occasionally  with  the  special  trades,  like  the 
steam-fitters,  machinists,  and  others.  You  see,  to  them 
steel  is  only  a  side  issue.  Of  the  distinctly  steel  unions 
the  representatives  go  over  the  company's  sales  books  every 
three  months.  In  that  way  they  make  sure  that  the  selling 
price  for  the  three  months'  period  has  been  as  represented, 
and  on  the  basis  of  any  change  of  price  the  wage  agreement 
is  continued.  In  America  I  understand  this  sUding-scale 
arrangement  is  practised,  at  least  so  far  as  steel  is  concerned, 
only  in  the  steel-sheet  industry.  I  presume  it  is  in  opera- 
tion there  as  the  direct  result  of  your  importation  of  our 
Welsh  'sheet-workers.' " 

Among  the  workers  in  general  labor  matters  appear  far 
from  quiet  and  contented.  The  Labor  Party  in  its  annual 
session  at  Scarborough  has  just  now  pubUcly  stated  that, 
in  its  opinion,  "In  spite  of  all  kinds  of  conciliation  ma- 
chinery the  relations  between  the  workers  and  the  owners 
were  never  worse."  It  intimates  that  all  the  idealism  of 
the  war  has  been  completely  lost,  with  nothing  done  in 
any  way  to  make  the  war  worth  its  prodigious  cost.  The 
party  is  apparently  very  strongly  for  nationalization  of 
coal  and  all  sorts  of  things.  In  several  of  its  proposals  it 
is  said  to  be  doing  a  certain  amount  of  pussyfooting,  as 
befits  an  organization  which  must  keep  its  eye  on  the  votes 
— ^which,  by  the  way,  Mr.  Gompers  and  Mr.  J.  P.  Frye  of 
our  own  A.  F.  of  L.  give  as  the  reason  why  they  oppose 
the  Labor  Party  idea  for  America.  The  party  also  turns 
down  government  purchase  of  the  liquor  trade  and  eschews 
prohibition,  but  does  go  on  record  for  local  option,  evidently 
having  in  mind  that  this  is  the  way  things  began  to  happen 
with  us.  A  well-known  American  official,  by  the  way, 
remarked  to-day  that  in  his  belief  this  country  would  go 
dry  in  five  years — ^largely  as  the  result  of  getting  the  wet- 
and-dry  issue  into  the  field  of  good  or  bad  industry  here 
as  at  home. 


6  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

But,  even  though  the  average  citizen  here  doesn't  seem 
as  keen  to  talk  about  the  labor  problem  as  in  "the  States," 
still  two  things  come  strongly  into  the  view  of  the  newcomer. 
For  one  thing,  the  country  is  certainly  having  a  great  time 
with  strikes — I  should  say  at  least  quite  as  bad  if  not  worse 
than  we.  The  day  we  landed,  the  National  Union  of  Gas- 
Workers  was  threatening  strike  in  a  very  serious  way.  They 
wanted  a  forty-four-hour  week  (now  forty-seven),  double 
time  for  Sundays,  week-ends,  etc.,  with  ten  shillings  a  week 
immediate  advance.  Gas  seems  to  sell  already  at  ten  or 
twelve  shilhngs  for  1,000  cubic  feet!  The  wireless  men  on 
the  big  liners  were  also  preventing  sailing  because  of  a  strike. 
The  dockers  have  lately  got  a  very  successful  award  of  two 
shillings  an  hom* — quite  high  here — ^but  are  now  wanting 
more  work  badly.  In  fact,  my  pet  idea  about  the  impor- 
tance of  the  job  was  upheld  before  the  end  of  my  very  first 
EngUsh  newspaper  page!  There  stood  the  words:  "The 
dockers'  great  need  is  not  for  registration,  not  for  govern- 
ment measures,  not  even  for  a  rise  in  wages.  The  dockers' 
great  need  is  regular  work." 

Even  the  notably  happy  workers  of  Lord  Leverholme  at 
Port  Sunlight  have  been  announced  as  having  a  dispute  on. 
Of  course,  the  strike  of  the  munition  workers  in  Ireland 
and  the  civil  war  in  Londonderry  have  also  been  much  in 
the  papers.  Besides  the  political  factors  in  the  Irish  mix- 
up,  it  seems  that  much  of  the  trouble  has  its  roots  in  the 
economic  problem.  One  correspondent  say^  that  serious 
trouble  always  starts  when  the  sons  of  the  Catholics  have 
diflficulty  getting  good  jobs  with  the  Ulstermen,  who  are 
reported  at  the  head  of  most  of  the  business  concerns  in 
"Deny,"  and  in  many  other  factory  cities.  The  small 
number  of  Irish  factory  cities,  especially  in  the  most  un- 
happy part  of  Ireland,  is  given  as  one  reason  why  so  little 
interest  seems  to  be  taken  in  the  whole  Irish  problem  by 
the  average  business  man  here.    The  possibility  of  an  Irish 


INTO  STRANGE  WATERS  7 

rail  strike  seems  to  be  very  much  on  the  mind  of  J.  H. 
Thomas,  the  conservative  head  of  the  Railway  Men's 
Union. 

The  papers  have  also  been  carrying  word  of  a  threatened 
strike  of  the  (unionized)  bank  clerks  of  Scotland  and  else- 
where. In  near-by  columns  appears  a  statement  of  the 
Minister  of  Labor  that  "Food  in  May  was  146  per  cent 
over  pre-war;  in  June  155  per  cent."  (This  is  not  quite  the 
same  as  the  cost  of  Uving,  into  which  other  items  must  be 
figured  with  appropriate  "weighting.")  The  same  minis- 
try also  stated  that  the  percentage  of  unemployed  among 
workers  covered  by  the  insurance  list  was  2.68  on  May  28 
and  2.80  on  April  30,  with  conditions  good  in  most  trades 
except  boot  and  shoe  and  the  weaving  section  of  the  cotton 
trade.  Weekly  wages  of  about  1,700,000  work-people 
showed  a  total  increase  750,000  pounds  sterling.  This 
represents  those  increases  recently  secured  by  the  dock 
laborers,  also  others  won  by  the  building  trades,  dress- 
making, and  cotton  and  woollen  operatives.  About  250,- 
000  workers  also  lessened  their  working  week  by  about 
two  and  a  half  hours. 

Altogether  it  would  look  as  though  labor  matters  were 
moving. 

The  second  of  these  noticeable  things  is  the  general  con- 
viction in  public  and  business  circles  that  the  EngUsh  worker 
is  lying  down  on  the  job  disgracefully — ^and  that  nothing 
can  be  done  about  it. 

"You'll  find  all  our  workers  taking  things  jolly  easy," 
appears  to  be  the  universal  testimony  except  when  it  is: 
"Well,  you'll  find  our  men  doing  much  less  in  a  day  than 
yours."  Usually  the  blame  is  placed  upon  the  imion. 
"We  can't  sell  our  furnaces  on  the  basis  of  the  men  it  will 
save,  because  the  unions  make  everybody  use  so  many  men 
for  so  many  furnaces,  whether  or  no.  So  we  can  only  talk 
the  saving  of  coal,"  said  a  salesman  from  America. 


/ 


8  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

How  this  will  turn  out  to  be  in  actuality  it  will  be  highly 
interesting  to  see. 

Of  one  thing  I  am  pretty  sure — namely,  that  the  roots 
of  whatever  loafing  there  is — and  perhaps  also  of  the  ap- 
parently universal  membership  in  the  union — will  be  found 
very  close  to  the  same  thing  that  is  on  the  mind  of  the  dock 
workers — the  daily  job,  "regular  work."  That  seems  to 
be  one  reason  why  the  unions  are  not  apparently  defending 
the  government's  Employment  Exchanges,  now  under  criti- 
cism as  expensive.  They  pretty  generally  want  to  handle 
the  getting  of  jobs  for  their  men  themselves  as  a  funda- 
mental service  for  their  members. 

"We  said  to  our  bricklayers,"  said  my  engineering  friend, 
"  *  here  we  are  paying  you  more  than  the  union  rate  and  yet 
you  throw  us  down  whenever  you  jolly  please,  or  when 
some  other  local  asks  you  to.  Why  don't  you  chuck  the 
union  ?  *  They  turned  around  on  us  at  once  and  said :  '  Can 
you  guarantee  us  a  job  for  every  day  in  the  year  we  need 
one?'" 

Well,  we  shall  see  what  we  shall  see.  I'm  sure  it's  going 
to  be  worth  while,  anyway — ^whatever  happens.  Because 
from  this  set-up  it  is  evident,  surely,  that  the  problem  isn't 
so  different  as  to  prevent  my  experiences  here  from  being 
useful  in  giving  a  better  light  into  our  problem  back  home. 

And  now  good  night  to  get  ready  for  moseying  noncha- 
lantly around  onto  that  bricklayer's  helper's  job  to-morrow. 

Later — ^June  30th. 

Am  told  to-day  that  the  uneasiness  noticed  in  the  cur- 
rent papers  comes  from  a  very  distinct  increase  of  unem- 
ployment within  the  last  two  or  three  weeks — since  the 
period  covered  by  the  Labor  Ministry's  figures.  People 
are  evidently  having  much  the  same  scare  we  had  back 
home  two  months  ago. 

Should  have  mentioned  last  night,  also,  the  doings  on 


INTO  STRANGE  WATERS  9 

shipboard  coming  over.  Though  the  boat  was  operating 
under  American  registry,  most  of  the  men  were  English 
and  reflected  English  rather  than  American  conditions. 
The  stewards  had  a  near-strike  because  they  were  being 
worked  over  ten  hours  per  day  with  no  extra  pay  whatever 
for  overtime.  The  difficulty  was  narrowly  averted  by  the 
steward's  promising  the  extra  pay.  The  second  engineer 
was  as  black  as  coal  when  he  took  me  down  into  the  stoke- 
hole, but  the  thing  that  worried  him  most — it  came  to  his 
lips  time  after  time — was  his  beloved,  though  I  must  say, 
bedraggled-looking,  engine: 

"We  used  to  be  able  to  get  in  a  few  coal-passers,  and 
have  every  rod  as  clean  as  your  face  around  here.  But  it 
can't  be  done  now — ^against  union  rules  to  bring  'em  in 
and  the  men  themselves  won't  do  it,  not  even  when  we're 
in  port,  and  they've  nothing  else  to  do !" 

Whitechapel,  London, 
July  1,  1920. 

A  long  and  slow-moving,  but  very  worth-while  day.  Like 
many  others  of  its  kind  it  has  been  a  demonstration  of  the 
way  men  wear  their  hearts,  if  not  on  their  sleeves,  then  at 
least  much  closer  to  the  surface  than  we  white-collared  folk 
are  apt  to  think. 

In  the  morning  I  got  again  into  my  old  clothes,  with  many 
misgivings,  feeling  myself  very  much  a  stranger  in  a  far 
country,  and  even  less  able  to  guess  what  might  happen 
to  me  in  these  parts  than  when  the  other  start  was  made 
a  year  and  a  half  ago.  In  the  restaurant  where  I  got  eggs, 
bacon,  a  pot  of  tea,  and  bread  and  butter  for  the  surprising 
price  of  one  and  ten  pence — ^about  thirty-five  cents  accord- 
ing to  the  present  exchange  which  gives  nearly  five  shillings 
to  the  dollar — I  felt  sure  I  was  dressed  too  badly  for  the 
place,  until  some  others  who  looked  still  tougher  and  nearer 
the  edge  of  things  were  good  enough  to  come  in.    One  of 


10  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

these  asked  the  girl  for  tea  and  one  egg,  and  then  proceeded 
to  unwrap  some  pieces  of  bread  he  had  brought  with  him. 

When  I  finally  got  to  the  bricklayer's  helper's  job,  I  was 
again  pleased  with  the  way  the  other  unskilled  workers 
who  lined  up  waiting  for  a  chance  at  similar  jobs  took  me 
in  without  an  instant's  delay.  The  boss  of  the  job,  how- 
ever, turned  me  down  cold — ^nicely  but  firmly: 

"Matter  of  fact,  I've  got  more  men  than  I  know  what 
to  do  with  now." 

"Yer  see,  it's  the  skilled  men  as  is  wanted — ^bricklayers 
and  the  likes  o'  that.  So  they  cawn't  take  more  of  us," 
one  of  my  fellow  applicants  explained. 

There  were  so  many  kinds  of  workers  all  about  the  plant 
that  was  being  erected  for  making  bottles  by  machinery 
according  to  an  American  patent,  that  no  one  seemed  to 
object  to  my  loafing  around  to  see  and  hear  all  possible. 
I  must  say  that  there  seemed  extremely  little  loafing  by 
the  bricklayers  or  their  assistants  who  brought  them  the 
hod-loads  of  bricks  and  mortar  up  the  ladders  from  below. 
Still  there  was  a  good  deal  of  eating  of  an  occasional 
sandwich  and  drinking  from  a  tea  or  coffee  can.  The  young 
American  in  charge  of  the  installation  of  the  patent  process 
— ^he  either  didn't  think  I  was  an  American  or  else  was  un- 
wilUng  to  admit  it  for  fear  I'd  strike  him  for  a  job — is  quite 
sure  that  these  workers  do  not  get  as  much  done  in  a  day 
as  ours.  But  they  aU  kept  on  the  job  very  well,  except 
the  carpenters,  who  would  not  work  as  long  as  it  continued 
"rainin'  quite  tidy,  you  know."  One  of  the  machine- 
fitters  was  evidently  loafing  and  ready  to  talk  with  a 
stranger  in  explanation  of  the  furnace  he  was  fixing  for 
carrying  the  moulded  bottles  through  on  a  continuous  chain. 
His  partner  berated  him  for  sitting  there  "like  a  bloomin' 
log,"  while  he  went  in  search  of  a  stick  long  enough  to  make 
a  measurement.  "For  every  one  o'  these  things  we  got  to 
go  find  a  new  stick.    If  only  we'd  save  'em  we'd  save  our- 


INTO  STRANGE  WATERS  11 

selves,  too.  But  what's  the  odds?"  About  that  time  he 
made  me  feel  as  if  I  was  back  home  on  some  factory  job 
as  he  exclaimed:  "Ah,  there's  the  Mogul!  I  mustn't  sit 
here  like  this ! "  Whereupon  he  caught  up  a  handy  wrench 
and  went  through  the  motions  of  tightening  a  bolt!  Of 
course,  to  help  him  fool  his  boss  I  sauntered  away. 

The  plans  of  the  plant  represent  the  last  word  in  labor 
and  time-saving  machinery,  but  the  contractors  are  cer- 
tainly using  many  hand-wound  or  horse-drawn  windlasses 
for  clumsily  raising  all  sorts  of  materials  to  the  high  plat- 
forms. The  finished  plant  is  expected  to  turn  out  some- 
thing like  5,000  gross  of  all  kinds  of  bottles  every  twenty- 
four  hours — ^without  a  glass-blower  in  the  place ! 

"There's  nothin'  in  the  wye  of  a  job  to  be  got  outside, 
anywheres  now,  and  that's  the  truth."  That  was  the  bur- 
den of  the  conversation  an  hour  later  when  I  dropped  into 
a  cheap  eating-place  in  Woolwich  near  the  government  ship- 
yard, and  about  a  mile  from  the  arsenal. 

"Yes,  I  took  a  few  days  off — told  the  Colonel  I  was  re- 
signin'  for  a  week,  ye  understand — and  looked  and  looked 
everywhere  and  no  good  it  was  to  me,  so  I  came  back,"  a 
red-haired  man  from  "the  West  of  Ireland"  put  in  with  a 
bitter  smile. 

"Unemployment  insurance?  Yes,  fifteen  bob  a  week! 
That  'ardly  pays  for  your  fags !  What  good  does  it  do  you, 
hi?"  That  was  the  way  a  serious-looking  chap  with  an 
attractive  face  and  a  linen  duster  of  a  clerk's  coat  put  it. 
"But  no  wonder  there's  the  'igh  cost  of  livin'  with  all  the 
money's  bein'  spent  by  the  government — 3,000,000  pounds 
they're  talkin'  about  now  fer  givin'  the  soldiers  a  bally  lot 
o'  scarlet  dress  uniforms  that's  no  good  to  nobody." 

"An'  all  the  waste  and  the  loafin'  there  in  the  shipyard ! 
Why,  if  I  was  asked  to  destriye  all  the  stuff  that  many  men's 
asked  to  destriye  right  over  there — ^war  stuff,  you  know, 
like  the  tables  that  was  used  by  the  German  prisoners,  and 


12  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

that's  havin'  their  legs  knocked  off  so  they  can  pack  'em 
away  nice  and  regular  and  military  like,  you  know — ^well, 
I'd  fair  tell  'em  they  could  have  my  job  I  W'y,  we  all  spend 
hours  in  there  movin'  stuff  from  here  over  to  there,  and 
from  there  over  to  that  place,  and  then,  after  we  go  along, 
a  new  gang  moves  'em  from  there  to  back  where  they  was 
when  we  found  'em.  And  even  at  that,  not  one  of  us  does 
a  decent  and  self-respectin'  day's  work." 

"But  when  you  'ave  your  money,"  breaks  in  the  clerk 
again,  "your  three-pound-fourteen  a  week,  what  'ave  you 
got?    If  you  'ave  childern,  a  man  simply  can't  live." 

"When  he  added  that,  for  one  thing,  there  was  too  much 
class  idea  in  it  all,  I  expected  to  see  it  take  a  different  turn 
from  the  Irishman's  cut-in: 

"You've  said  it  I  W'y,  let  a  man  walk  down  street  with 
his  workin'  clothes  on,  and  out  of  a  dozen  girls  he  passes 
not  two  of  'em  will  give  him  so  much  as  a  look,  to  say 
nothing  of  answering  his  how  do  you  do  I  But  when  he's  got 
some  good  clothes  on  as  a  clerk  and  rubs  two  shillings  to- 
gether then  they  come  his  way  nice  enough !" 

"Well,  I'm  off  for  Canada  the  end  of  the  siunmer,"  he 
went  on  as  he  produced  a  letter  from  a  pal  who  reported 
with  great  detail  the  values  he  was  getting  for  his  money 
over  there  in  the  way  of  laundry,  meals,  etc.  The  letter 
concluded  with  " — and  in  four  or  five  years  of  this  I'm  com- 
ing back  home  to  buy  the  finest  'pub'  you  got  in  your  whole 
blamed  country  and  take  life  easy." 

The  evident  effect  of  the  reading  was  so  strong  that  it 
coincided  with  my  earUer  observations  that  it  is  by  means 
of  such  first-hand  testimony  that  most  of  the  decisions  of 
the  workers — if  not  of  most  of  the  rest  of  us — ^are  made 
from  day  to  day.  "My  brother,  he  over  here,  send  for 
me,"  the  foreign-born  workers  in  America  were  always  say- 
ing in  explanation  of  their  comings  over  or  their  anovings 
from  one  place  in  the  coimtry  to  another.     Such  com- 


INTO  STRANGE  WATERS  13 

munications  serve  as  the  great  means  of  instruction  about 
things  they  cannot  see,  just  as  the  eyes  of  their  daily  ex- 
perience teach  them  from  moment  to  moment  what  to  think 
about  the  things  going  on  around  them.  Much  of  the  whole 
attitude  of  the  workers  toward  government  there  at  home, 
I  found  thus  based  not  so  much  on  what  they  read  in  the 
papers  as  on  what  they  saw  going  on  around  them  on  their 
job.    Said  one  of  this  group: 

"Well,  I  tried  hard  enough  to  buy  one  of  the  cases  they 
make  for  carryin'  the  parts  of  a  cannon — cost  three  pounds 
to  make,  they  did,  and  they're  sellin'  'em  at  auction  for 
two  shillin' !  'But,  of  course,'  they  says  to  me,  *we  can't 
sell  'em  in  less  'n  lots  of  fifty!'  And  then  Lloyd  George 
and  the  rest  of  'em  comes  down  and  pats  us  on  the  back — 
and  wouldn't  know  us  from  Adam  any  other  time — no,  nor 
care." 

''Well,  let  me  tell  you,  we'll  all  be  lucky  to  have  our  jobs 
this  winter.  It's  goin'  to  be  a  'ard  time,  in  my  opinion," 
broke  in  a  very  sedate  and  quiet  person  of  the  head-ma- 
chinist type. 

"I  don't  know  what  brings  you  over  here,"  the  red-haired 
and  fiery-dispositioned  man  from  Ireland  confided  after- 
ward when  he  hailed  me  on  the  street  and  we  were  alone. 
"But  for  Heaven's  sake,  don't  think  o'  working  here! 
Everybody  loses  all  his  ambition  here^— they  hold  onto  the 
same  job  exactly  now  that  they  had  twenty  year  ago.  W'y, 
you  know,  even  the  tramway  men  call  out,  'Convalescent's 
Home!'  or  'Saint's  Rest!'  when  they  stop  here  or  at  the 
arsenal!  I  give  you  my  word,  they  just  don't  remember 
how  to  work  after  they's  been  here  a  few  years.  It's  aw- 
ful! Of  course,  you'll  get  your  three-pounds-fourteen, 
but  you'll  he  disrespected — by  yourself  and  everybody  else! 
Here  am  I — nothin'  but  common  labor — at  the  bottom  of 
the  whole  pile  and  shootin'  match!  And  I've  had  forty- 
seven  public  appearances  ridin'  the  best  horses  in  the  coun- 


14  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

try!  That's  what  the  war  has  done  for  me!  Now,  my 
friend  in  Canada — he's  better  circimistanced  than  I — that 
is,  he's  not  married.  But  my  wife — well,  she's  young  but 
she's  wise,  you  imderstand.  I  was  sayin'  to  her  last  night, 
'Now  here  we  are,  we're  fairly  comfortable.'  We  live  with 
her  old  man  and  that  helps,  so  we  can  save  about  fifteen 
shillin'  a  week  besides  takin'  care  of  our  three-year-old. 
'We  can  go  to  a  show  when  we  want  to,'  I  says,  'and  have 
a  drink  when  we  want  it.  And  we're  as  good  as  a  lot  of 
the  rest  of  the  people  here  in  this  town,'  I  says.  '  But  where 
will  we  be  in  ten  years  from  now — ^when  I'm  forty  years 
old?  Where'll  we  be  then?'  I  says.  An'  she  says  she's 
game,  so  I'm  goin'  to  be  lookin'  up  a  White  Star  liner  one 
of  these  days  and  see  if  I  can't  get  started  as  a  steward  or 
something.  Somehow  or  other  I  got  to  make  somethin'  of 
myself.  I'll  fair  die  if  I  got  to  stick  around  and  be  gen- 
eral labor  all  my  life.  And  I'm  gettin'  old  just  worryin' 
about  what  I  should  do — till  I  think  I  could  fair  shoot 
LUde  George  if  he  was  standin'  there  now." 
And  then  he  proceeded  to  hand  me  a  jolt: 
"Course  that — even  that — ^wouldn't  be  so  bad  for  me. 
My  brother  and  me — ^well,  we  murdered  a  policeman  in 
Ireland  only  last  winter.  You  see,  he  was  arrestin'  a  man 
and  we  tried  to  take  the  man  away  from  him  and  my 
brother  he  tapped  him  too  hard  with  an  iron  pipe  he  had. 
And  after  he  was  down  I  kicked  him  in  the  face — and  he 
seemed  to  be  done  for  worse  than  we  thought  for.  So  the 
rest  of  'em  said  we  didn't  ought  to  leave  him  in  his  misery 
that  way.  So  we  all  went  at  it  and  finished  him  off.  That's 
the  way  they  do  it  in  Ireland — they  don't  believe  in  lettin' 
people  lie  in  their  misery — and  everybody  helps.  The  jury 
disagreed  three  times,  so  we  was  let  off.  My  mother  she 
thinks  I'm  pretty  bloody  bad  and  writes  for  me  not  to 
come  home  now  that  so  many  gangs  is  gettin'  together  and 
doin'  mostly  nothin'  but  miu*derin'.  No,  I'd  not  advise 
you  to  look  for  work  over  there. 


INTO  STRANGE  WATERS  15 

"But  there's  too  much  bloody  misery  right  here — and 
that's  a  fact — ^and  that's  what's  worryin'  me.  There, 
look  at  those  fellows  in  fine  clothes!  This  one's  getting 
exactly  eight  bob  a  week  less  than  I,  but  he's  payin'  his 
father  nothin'  a  week  for  his  board,  so  he  can  loaf  and  get 
along.  The  same  with  these  dressed-up  chaps  over  there — 
and  all  their  wound  stripes  will  only  get  'em  more  trouble 
findin'  work — there's  250,000  soldiers  out  of  work  here 
now  and  75,000  in  Canada.  And  these  fellows,  at  that, 
can't  save  much  even  if  they  ain't  married.  The  trouble 
with  a  married  man  is  that  if  he  does  save,  there's  always 
something  happening  to  use  up  the  coupla  quid  (pounds) 
he  thought  he  had  laid  away  for  good — the  baby's  got  to 
have  some  shoes  you  hadn't  counted  on  or  something — 
and  after  that's  happened  a  few  times  and  you  see  you're 
no  better  off  than  you  were  before,  w'y  then  you  chuck 
the  whole  bloody  idea!  Well,  there's  the  bell  and  I'll 
have  to  go  in  and  support  the  government  by  movin' 
things  around  some  more — or  destriyin'  'em.  Good  luck 
to  you." 

Yesterday  I  was  told  that  Woolwich  arsenal  is  in  charge 
of  a  very  progressive  man  who  is  much  interested  in  the 
plan  of  keeping  the  organization  going  by  making  engines 
and  similar  supplies  in  between  wars,  as  it  were.  The 
place  now  keeps  something  like  17,000  men  busy  with  all 
their  operations  as  compared  with  90,000  in  war  time. 

Across  the  river  at  the  Prince  Albert  docks  I  watched 
some  very  big  strong  men  let  a  helper  swing  back  and 
forth  great  quarters  of  beeves,  as  they  came  along  suspended 
from  monorail  conveyers  off  a  great  boat  which  had  brought 
7,000  tons  of  them  from  the  Argentine.  When  they  swung 
high  enough  so  the  men  could  get  their  shoulders  under 
them,  they  marched  with  them  up  the  incline  and  pitched 
them  jauntily  down  into  the  hold  of  a  barge  or  lighter 
which  would  doubtless  require  the  services  of  other  men 
to  take  them  out  again  farther  up  the  river  in  London. 


16  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

"Three  thousand  of  'em  in  a  day — and  fifty  bob  (shilling) 
a  day  a  man  for  doin'  it  (two  pounds  ten  or  $12.50  at  ordi- 
nary exchange).  Why,  the  fellows  that  has  done  this  too 
regular  ain't  (pronounced  eyent)  the  size  of  a  half  a  man 
now.  Not  a  woman  as  would  look  at  'em !  Well,  I've  been 
everywhere — ^in  the  States,  AustraUa,  New  Zealand!  But 
I  guess  I  like  this  better  than  all.  And  this  job  keeps  me 
fit — only  when  the  lighter  sets  as  high  as  this  and  you  have 
to  go  up  the  incline — that's  what  tykes  it  out  of  you.  But 
this  job — ^well,  it  makes  you  go  at  a  big  steak  this  way — 
gobble,  gobble !    It's  fair  medicine  for  me,  this  job." 

He  had  been  three  years  and  four  months  in  the  army — 
as  everybody  among  the  workers  and  I  guess  everybody 
else,  for  that  matter,  seems  to  have  been — ^and  was  as  big 
and  handsome  and  attractive  a  worker  as  I've  seen  in  a 
long  time.  I  kept  wanting  to  say  that  we  needed  men  like 
him  in  my  country.  I  thought  he  might  be  a  hard  drinker 
— and  perhaps  he  is — ^but  he  surprised  me.  That  was 
when,  after  he  had  expressed  his  wish  for  a  drink  instead 
of  the  cup  of  tea  which  the  company  furnishes  the  gang, 
he  came  out  with: 

"Yes,  I'd  like  to  see  it  dry  over  here,  too.  And  there's 
many  others  as  would  say  that  here  if  they  spoke  their 
minds.  Why,  right  over  there  in  that  boat  there  from 
America  there's  men  that'll  tell  you,  'Why,  in  the  coxmtry 
we  come  from  we've  got  friends  as  was  in  the  gutter,  and 
now,  by  God,  they're  wearin'  a  collar  and  tie.'  " 

If  the  workers  can  have  an  abundance  of  such  "demon- 
stration" the  world  won't  be  long  going  dry! 

With  that  he  ran  off  to  take  his  turn  at  the  tea,  beer  not 
being  available  on  the  dock.  Tea  is  served  to  all  the  clerks 
in  London  offices  at  four  as  regular  as  clockwork.  Some  of 
the  heads  have  told  me  that  an  amazing  amount  of  work 
is  done  between  that  and  closing  time  at  five-thirty. 

I  would  give  a  lot  to  know  the  full  details  of  the  major 


INTO  STRANGE  WATERS  17 

factors  in  the  life  of  the  next  man  who  topped  off  my  day. 
He  was  old  and  thin  and  badly  weather-beaten,  but  evi- 
dently still  very  active,  as  we  got  to  talking  on  the  foot- 
bridge going  over  the  railway  near  the  docks. 

"Yes,  I'm  a  docker  now.  An'  during  the  war  t'was  a 
good  job — with  men  scarce  and  wages  'igh.  Now  there's 
plenty  o'  work  but  plenty  o'  men,  too.  It's  five  weeks 
since  I  been  able  to  pay  me  imion  dues.  Thot's  saxpence 
the  week.  There's  been  nothin'  fer  me  to  do  but  take  the 
chawnce  of  pickin'  up  a  coupla  bob  'ere  carryin'  somun's 
bags  or  boxes — and  a-sleepin'  wherever  I  could  at  night. 
I  'aven't  'ad  a  chawnce  ter  wash  me  face  the  day  to-day. 
That's  after  forty  years  knockin'  around  on  the  sea  in 
'windbags'  and  steamers — ^all  kinds  o'  ships  and  ivery 
part  of  the  world — in  the  stoke-hole  and  on  the  decks  since 
I  wuz  fifteen  years  old.  Me  family?  Ah,  they've  all  flew 
away,  ivery  wan  of  thim — ^with  two  sons  thot  went  down 
with  the  army.  I'm  the  only  wan  left — ^and  I  suppose 
I'll  be  agoin'  wan  of  these  days;  they  say  iverybody's  got 
to.  Yis,  it's  been  worth  while — with  a  lot  of  knockin' 
about."  And  then  his  soul  seemed  to  blaze  up,  as,  with 
shaking  finger,  he  shouted: 

"But  they's  men  in  there — thousands  of  'em — thot's  'ad 
a  job  ivery  day  fer  weeks — ^ivery  day  for  weeks !  Thot's 
not  right !  They  shoidd  tike  their  tiurn — ^iverybody  should 
divide  up  and  iverybody  'ave  his  share  o'  work.  Look  at 
this  fellow  a-closin'  of  'is  gates  afore  the  trine  is  near! 
Well,  he's  got  Hs  job  and  'e's  goin'  ter  do  'is  duty  and 
everybody  else  can  look  out  fer  'imself !" 

As  I  said  good-by  I  told  him  I  could  ask  him  in  for  a 
drink  but  thought  he  might  be  able  to  use  the  bob  to  good 
advantage  to  himself,  and  that  I  could  spare  it  before  get- 
ting a  cattle  boat  back  to  the  States.  If  ever  face  and 
arms  and  voice  spoke  thanks  with  the  quickness  of  a  flash 
his  did,  as  he  grabbed  for  my  hand  with  his:  "Oh !    Oh !" 


18  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

In  an  instant  his  eyes  were  commencing  to  be  full.  "Why, 
this'U  buy  me  a  real  bed  to-night ! "  And  again  his  hand 
— a  horny  hand  it  was  of  all  that  I  have  ever  clasped — ^and 
again  his:  ''Oh !  Oh !  That'll  buy  me  a  real  bed —  Good- 
by  to  ye  and  good  luck  to  ye.  I'll  think  of  ye  this  night 
on  me  bed !    Good-by." 

So,  as  I've  been  riding  back  to  my  quarters  on  top  of  a 
I  is,  past  mile  after  mile  of  gray  slums,  I've  kept  repeating 
to  myseK:  "Men  are  so  much  better  at  bottom  than  they 
appear  on  the  surface — so  much  truer  when  you  get  a  good 
close-up,  local  connection  than  by  the  ordinary  'long-dis- 
tance' contacts  of  this  specialized  and  classified  old  world 
— so  much  better." 

Whitechapel,  London, 
July  3,  1920. 

It  has  been  a  day  of  getting  closer  to  the  Far  East  than 
ever  before — down  in  the  midst  of  the  odd  cargoes  and  the 
medley  of  British  and  Indian  workers  and  the  strange 
Oriental  smells  which  the  big  ships  bring  into  the  East 
India  dock.  It  gave  a  chance  to  jump  down  into  the  Ught- 
ers  and  to  heft  the  huge  ivory  tusks,  some  of  them  nearly 
twelve  feet  long  from  their  sharp  points  to  where  they  seem 
to  have  been  torn  out  by  the  roots — some  of  them  colored 
like  a  fine  old  pipe,  others  carved  fancifully  to  show  a 
crocodile  swallowing  a  long  snake  which  in  turn  is  swal- 
lowing a  frog — tons  and  tons  of  these  tusks  thrown  care- 
lessly out  of  the  big  East  Indian  liner  into  the  waiting 
barge,  by  which  most  of  the  freight  seems  to  be  taken  to 
the  various  markets  or  storage  places  farther  up  in  Lon- 
don. A  short  distance  away  it  was  possible  to  taste  the 
"foot  sugar"  from  Madras  or  the  copra  or  cocoanut  shell 
and  cocoanut  "meat"  from  various  Oriental  places — 
hardly  any  tastier  than  the  sheeps'  wool,  the  worn-out  auto 
tires,  the  jute,  or  the  coffee. 

All  these  things  seem  to  look  good  to  the  dockers  or 


DOCKERS    UNLOADING    COPRA    OR    COCOANUT-MEAT    FOR    MAKING 
OIL,  CATTLE-FOOD,  AND  OLEOMARGARINE  AT  A  LONDON   DOCK. 


"THEY  TELLS  US  AS   'OW  WE  SHOULD   SIVE  OUR  MONEY. 
SO  'ERE  WE  ARE!" 

Getting  bits  of  coal  from  the  ash  heap  In  an  industrial  centre.      (With  the  instinct 
of  the  eternal  feminine,  the  lady  has  removed  her  cap  in  order  to  be  at  her  best.) 


INTO  STRANGE  WATERS  19 

stevedores,  for  they  spell  bread  and  butter — or,  at  worst, 
"marge"  as  they  call  oleomargarme — at  the  rate  of  sixteen 
bob  a  day  of  eight  hours.  From  the  way  they  put  their 
shoulders  under  the  great  bags,  many  of  them  weighing 
two  hundred  pounds,  I'd  say  they  aren't  afraid  of  work  by 
a  long  shot.  As  soon  as  the  winch — or  the  hydraulic  crane 
— ^has  deposited  the  load  of  bales  and  bundles  on  the  dock, 
they  seem  to  tear  into  them  in  proper  style.  In  a  moment 
they  get  their  truck  loaded  and  off  down  the  way  to  the 
lighter,  indulging  occasionally  in  banter  and  language  that 
would  make  even  my  old  friends  on  the  open-hearth  floor 
take  off  their  hats — some  of  it  too  curdled  for  an  Amer- 
ican to  understand  without  more  practice  than  I've  had 
yet. 

"Thanks  fer  calling  me  a  dog,"  came  out  in  one  dispute. 
"Well,  if  'arf  of  us  wuz  dogs,  'twould  be  a  better  warrld 
than  'tis  now,  becuz  dogs  is  true  and  men  eyent." 

One  thing  is  sm-e,  it  is  impossible  to  get  very  far  away 
from  the  thought  of  the  job — the  steady  job — ^while  mov- 
ing around  among  these  chaps,  whether  inside  the  great 
dock's  stone  gate  or  out.  My  ease  in  talking  things  over 
with  them  grew  greater  after  several  of  them  came  up  and 
after  reaching  behind  their  ears  to  produce  an  inch  or  inch 
and  a  half  of  cigarette,  coolly  took  a  Ught  from  mine  with- 
out a  word.  The  shortness  of  the  treastu*ed  cigarettes 
may  possibly  be  explained  by  the  story  which  is  said  to 
be  popular  among  the  district's  schoolboys — "The  other 
day  I  went  into  a  tobacconist's  to  get  me  a  cigar  and  a 
man  trod  on  me  fingers." 

"There's  bloody  Uttle  work  around  *ere  now,"  was  the 
testimony  of  an  old  man  of  seventy  who  repeated  the  general 
complaint.  "Durin'  the  war  they  was  enough  fer  all — 
but  ye  can  see  all  the  men  that's  witin'  fer  somethin'  'ere 
to-dye.  Yuss" — with  amazing  fervor  when  I  mentioned 
the  husky  piece-workers  of  yesterday  afternoon, — "yuss, 


20  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

I  know  them  piece-work  fellies !  They  gets  their  fifty  bob 
a  dye  all  right  by  a-doin'  of  the  work  of  two  or  three  good 
men — a  puttin'  bread  and  jam  inter  their  bellies  and  sajdn' 
*  Chuck  you,  Jack,'  to  the  rest  of  us.  But  that's  hke  the 
rest  o'  the  world  now.  Forty  years  ago  I  was  a  devil  fer 
work  meself,  but  I'd  alius  share  a  shillin'  with  any  one 
and  they  with  me.  But  nowadays  they  see  a  man  in  the 
gutter  and  let  him  bloody  well  lie !  .  .  .  But  I  got  me 
pension  now — ten  bob  a  week — and  with  the  other  ten 
bob  I  can  pick  up  I  gets  along — ^just  as  I  hev  since  I  wuz 
fourteen  and  started  off  ter  sea — ^without  no  schoolin'  after 
I  was  seven. " 

"See  them  Lascars?"  said  a  red-faced,  unshaven  fellow 
in  badly  soiled  coat,  greasy  handkerchief  for  necktie,  spotted 
corduroy  pants,  and  the  heaviest  of  boots,  all  in  very  great 
contrast  with  the  East  Indian's  bare  feet,  gray  denim 
trousers  and  jumper,  black  beard  and  dish-rag  of  a  turban. 
"The  law's  been  lettin'  them  things  and  the  Chinks  get 
the  places  on  the  boats  that  should  belong  to  us.  'Taint 
right." 

"Ye '11  'ave  trouble  findin'  work  and  that's  the  truth," 
a  man  in  charge  of  one  of  the  lighters  informed  me.  He 
was  well  dressed  and  looked  intelligent.  "Of  course  the 
reason  is  that  so  many  has  hstened  to  this  'ere  propagander 
about  more  production !  'More  production !'  the  mawsters 
say.  //  there  wasn't  a  good  many  as  didn't  'eed  it,  there' d 
be  no  job  fer  nobody  now  'ereabouts." 

Before  lunching  in  one  of  the  worst-looking  emporiums 
of  fried  fish  that  could  be  conceived,  I  took  a  glass  of  what 
he  called  "  ile  "  (ale)  with  my  old  friend.  I  hoped  to  find  that 
my  old  lumber  hobo  was  right  when  he  testified  that  booze 
made  you  "mind  the  dirt  and  the  flies  less."  At  the  table 
of  the  "fish  and  chips"  place  a  bright-looking  Jewish  boy 
was  good  enough  to  insist  that  I  share  with  him  from  a 
great  loaf  of  bread  he  drew  from  his  pocket.    It  helped  a 


INTO  STRANGE  WATERS  21 

lot  to  put  down  the  half-cooked  fish  and  the  greasy  pota- 
toes. He  added  his  own  to  the  general  testimony  that 
American  employers  are  better  than  the  English  and  was 
evidently  well  pleased  with  his  present  job  with  one  of 
them. 

"Two  days  o'  work  I've  'ad  this  week  and  only  one 
lawst  week,"  was  the  sad  testimony  of  another  worker  who 
was  not  a  member  of  the  union,  but  looked  rather  pros- 
perous. 

"If  you've  got  a  card  and  are  well  known  in  these  parts, 
mebbe,"  was  the  sufiiciently  pointed  reply  of  a  laborer  who 
was  outside  the  gates  of  another  dock  a  mile  or  so  away 
where  I  asked  about  the  chances. 

"Now  (no),  never  'awve  Ah  been  to  the  stites,"  answered 
a  thin-faced  and  sUght-framed  man  of  broad  accent  at  still 
another  dock  as  we  stood  opposite  the  policemen  who  were 
examining  the  packages  of  some  of  the  passengers  just  in 
from  Alexandria.  "But  otherwise,  I've  been  much  around 
the  wawrrld — as  a  firemon  like  yourself.  But  ye '11  never 
be  a-gettin'  awve  a  boat  from  'ere.  Ye  should  try  the 
Surrey  or  the  Tilbury  Docks." 

"Two  mont's  here  since  come  from  Alexandria — fire- 
man" a  black-bearded  man  who  said  he  was  an  Egyptian 
and  certainly  looked  it  in  spite  of  his  English  clothes  and 
his  stoker's  or  fireman's  sweat-rag  about  his  neck.  "Mostly 
sleep  on  streets  nights,"  he  added  sadly. 

It  may,  of  course,  be  that  some  of  them  are  telling  as 
large  tales  as  I  am.  But  when  they  take  me  for  a  fellow 
fireman,  share  their  bread  with  me,  and  accept  the  Ught  of 
my  cigarette  without  (asking  for  it,  it  can  be  put  down 
pretty  certainly  that  their  tales  are  not  meant  to  secure 
the  sympathy  they  might  expect  for  the  right  kind  of  a 
story  if  we  were  not  pals  together.  At  any  rate  they 
seem  to  accept  without  reservations  my  tale  of  having  made 
"a  bit  of  money  over  in  the  States  workin'  in  steel,  y'  un- 


22  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

derstand,  and  wanted  to  come  over  for  a  look  'round,  like; 
worked  me  passage  with  a  lot  of  cattle"  (true  enough  and 
twice  true  but  twenty  years  and  more  ago),  "was  promised 
a  free  go  on  the  boat  back  in  three  weeks,  but  meanwhile, 
ye  see,  I  'm  out  of  money  and  where  the  devil  can  I  get  a 
job,  huh?" 

Well,  it  all  looks  like  a  hard  life,  but  there  may  be  some 
compensations,  judging  by  the  free  and  easy  way  most  of 
them  seem  to  take  it  all — including,  especially,  their  "ile" 
in  the  big  glasses  holding  a  full  pint. 

Whitechapel, 
Saturday,  July  3,  1920. 

'Twas  a  breath  of  home  to  read  the  Times '  very  friendly 
American  Fourth  of  July  supplement  and  its  editorial  this 
morning — ^very  much  in  line  with  the  words  of  a  great  tall 
chap  encoimtered  this  afternoon  over  by  the  docks:  "It's 
'awnd  in  'awnd  we  should  go,  you  Johnny  Browns  and  we 
Johnny  Bulls.  I  can  bloody  well  see  that  it's  you  and  not 
us  as  is  goin'  ter  'ave  the  biggest  nivy,  and  we  don't  want 
yer  comin'  over  'ere  ner  us  a  'avin'  ter  go  over  there,  neither." 

"Fer  the  Daily  Mirror,  hye?"  my  docker  friends  of  yes- 
terday all  called  good-naturedly  to  me  as  I  aimed  my 
camera  at  them  to-day.  I  was  better  dressed  than  yes- 
terday and  they  didn't  recognize  me.  In  the  "  pubUc  house  " 
money  and  beer  flowed  fast  and  furious,  seeing  that  all  had 
been  paid  off  for  the  week  of  forty-four  hours.  The  war- 
time restrictions  seem  still  to  keep  the  places  closed  till 
twelve,  then  open  till  two-thirty  and  again  open  from  five 
till  ten.  All  the  workers  so  far  assure  me  that  "Every- 
body tikes  enough  ter  last  'im  inbetweens  and  they's  more 
beer  drunk  now  than  before."  But  I  doubt  it.  So  far  I've 
seen  less  drunkenness  than  on  my  other  trip  here.  Still 
that  may  be  because  of  the  complaint  everybody  makes  of 
the  prohibitive  cost  of  spirits  for  the  poor  man. 


INTO  STRANGE  WATERS  23 

"A  bloody  revolution  there'll  be  if  ever  they  try  to  tike 
our  Uberty — and  our  beer — ^away  from  us  as  they  did  over 
there!"  is  the  general  testimony,  apparently,  in  the  pubs. 
Of  course,  they  don't  mean  necessarily  that  blood  would 
flow.  The  adjective  is  merely  a  manner  of  speaking,  as  it 
were.  "Wy,  Ga  blime,  they's  enough  bloody  tar  in  them 
laces,"  explains  one  friend,  when  a  boy  calls  out,  "Penny 
apiece,"  "to  run  a  bleedin'  rileway  trine!  A  bloke  cam't 
put  on  'is  bloody  boots  fer  the  bloody  tar,  'e  cam't." 

"Work?  Sure,  there's  work — if  yu've  got  a  good  berth," 
says  an  elderly  person  of  fairly  comfortable  looking  type, 
while  his  profane  partner  pokes  fun  at  him  for  the  years  in 
Canada  denoted  by  his  "Sure!"  "Me !"  he  continues,  "I've 
got  me  job  now  fer  life — now  thet  I've  been  reinstated  fer 
me  pension  that  I  lost  after  the  last  strike. — ^Aye,  a  foreman 
I  was — once.  No,  not  a  dye  of  schooUn'  'ave  I  'ad.  I 
went  to  work  when  I  was  nine,  when  me  father  died.  I'm 
sixty-eight.  A  good  dozen  o'  childern  I  got,  too.  Me 
daughter's  married — the  oldest — ^and  nms  a  big  boardin' 
'ouse.  But  it's  years  since  she's  spoke  a  word  to  me — not 
since  the  time  she  found  me  makin'  love  to  a  woman  when 
me  second  wife  was  lay  in'  dead  in  the  front  room.  'Course 
she  was  mad.  But  blood  will  flow,  won't  it,  I  asks  yer? 
Nature  will  'ave  its  way,  now  won't  it?" 

"Pilferin'?  Wy,  of  course  there's  pilferin'  on  the  docks. 
Yer  see,  they  puts  so  much  cargo  in  'ere  durin'  the  war," 
explained  one  of  his  friends,  as  we  were  pushed  up  together 
at  the  bar  by  the  rush  of  incomers,  "that  they  was  fruit 
from  Califomy  all  over  the  plice.  WuU,  with  all  the  bloody 
rats  a-eatin'  all  the  bleedin'  libels  (labels)  off,  yer  'ad  ter 
open  'um  up  and  'ave  a  look  an'  a  tyste  ter  tell  wuz  they 
pineapples  er  plooms." 

"Two  quid  (pounds)  ighte  (eight)  shillin'  Ah've  mide  this 
week  on  them,"  testified  a  great  hulk  of  a  fellow  who  seemed 
to  know  my  friends  well,  as  we  got  to  talking  about  the  way 


24  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

so  many  people  seem  to  put  money  on  the  horses  that  ap- 
pear to  race  every  day.  "No  fear  awVe  it's  gettmg  inter 
the  bank,"  he  added  in  answer  to  my  question — "not  with 
five  chicks  ter  buy  shoes  fer. " 

They  were  still  treating  each  other  to  their  great  black 
pints  when  I  said  good-by.  Later  I  was  lucky  enough  to 
come  upon  an  unusually  inteUigent  worker  with  a  clean 
white  collar,  waiting  with  his  boy  of  nine  for  his  tram. 

"Yes,  my  line  is  stevedoring — ^not  at  this  dock — ^and  I'm 
not  like  most  of  these  chaps  here.  They're  casuals.  That's 
bad.  And  working  one  day  and  no  job  the  next  makes 
them  lazy,  too.  I'm  in  a  union  of  dock,  dredge,  river,  and 
general  workers  that  has  an  agreement  with  stevedore 
contractors  that  pay  us  each  three  pounds  ten  a  week, 
whether  we  work  or  not,  and  sixteen  shillings  a  day  when 
we  do.  And  if  there's  no  work  at  one  dock  they  transfer 
us  to  another.  The  union  always  plays  square  and  we  can 
trust  them  to  work  everything  out  to  everybody's  satisfac- 
tion without  our  having  to  do  more  than  pass  a  vote.  Of 
course  there's  some  of  these  here  Russians  running  about 
talking  about  their  line,  but  I  don't  think  they're  getting 
far  with  it.  Now  look  at  these  people  all  waiting  for  their 
turn  at  the  seats  here  in  the  bus.  Could  you  do  better  than 
that  in  America  ?  .  .  .  Yes,  I  think  we'll  have  it  dry  here 
one  of  these  days.  But  I  see  a  lot  of  the  men  coming 
over  from  your  country  on  the  boats — the  workers,  you 
know — that  drink  a  lot  of  spirits — ^not  beer  like  we  do — 
when  they  get  over  here. ' ' 

It  would  look  as  though  he  was  the  type  that  men  say 
make  the  back-bone  of  the  country.  He  certainly  demon- 
strates splendidly  the  dignity  which  comes  to  the  proud 
possessor  of  the  steady  job.  It's  almost  inconceivable  that 
he  does  the  same  kind  of  work  as  the  others  I've  been 
mixing  with.  There  will  probably  be  more  of  this  type 
following  the  legislation  which  the  bright  Jewish  young 


INTO  STRANGE  WATERS  25 

worker  told  me  of  yesterday.  That  will  provide  for  keep- 
ing boys  in  school  till  sixteen  and  then,  within  seven  years, 
or  as  soon  as  the  facilities  may  be  provided,  until  they're 
eighteen.  That  looks  good,  taken  in  connection  with  the 
care  yomig  children  are  said  to  be  given  by  the  health 
authorities  from  several  weeks  before  they  are  born  up  till 
school  age  at  five  when  they  will  start  coming  in  for  an 
annual  health  examination  by  the  school  authorities. 

Well,  those  docks  are  certainly  interesting — with  their 
international  angles  of. both  trade  and  the  labor  problem. 

Hope  to  get  off  Monday  to  Wales,  though  it  looks  rather 
scary  whether  there  will  be  any  job,  with  the  business 
world  so  unhappy  about  the  proposed  "Excess  Profits 
Duty"  tax  of  sixty  per  cent — ^in  addition  to  the  present  in- 
come tax  of  six  shillings  to  the  pound.  Anjrway,  it  lessens 
the  tendency  to  homesickness  to  see  all  the  papers  here 
excited  about  the  same  old  American  items  of  the  govern- 
ment's  "squandermania";  the  London  County  Council's 
six  per  cent  housing  bonds  under  criticism  for  going  into 
houses  too  expensive  for  the  workers — ^and  not  being  sub- 
scribed for;  labor-unions  getting  jumped  on  for  not  being 
representative,  with  4,000,000  workers  in  and  9,000,000 
out,  etc.,  etc.  It  does  look  odd  and  far  from  home  to 
read,  at  the  same  time,  of  bank  clerks'  unions  securing 
annual  increases  of  $15,000,000  and  Peterborough  Cathe- 
dral celebrating  its  800th  anniversary! 

Good  night ! 


CHAPTER  II 

BY  THE  SMELTERS  AND  STOVES  OF  SOUTH  WALES 

Cardiff,  South  Wales, 
Tuesday,  July  6,  1920. 

The  day  has  refused  a  job,  but  it  has  given  a  very  weary 
pair  of  legs, — ^also  a  full  pair  of  ears  and  eyes,  not  to  men- 
tion a  mind  full  of  the  satisfaction  of  getting  closer  to  the 
summer's  quarry  because  closer  to  the  fiery  fronts  of  open- 
hearths,  charging-machines,  cinder  pits,  "  stoves, '*  and  such- 
like old  friends. 

The  train  was  fast  and  the  third-class  compartment  car 
very  comfortable  for  the  three  hours'  trip — quite  without 
any  real  need,  I'd  say,  of  the  support  of  the  large  glasses 
of  whiskey  taken  by  the  two  middle-aged  ladies  and  their 
gentleman  relative.  At  the  station  here  we  waited  for  the 
poUcemen  to  bring  somebody  along,  and  behold,  King 
Manuel  of  Portugal,  handsome  and  smiling,  with  an  ex- 
tremely styhsh  young  lady!  How  they  happened  to  be 
here  I'll  have  to  wait  xmtil  the  morning  paper  to  find  out. 
The  crowd  evidently  had  no  idea  who  they  were. 

"Aye,  they're  'and  charged,  all  right.  That's  why  we 
*as  our  job,"  the  rough  and  dust-covered  worker  I  sat  down 
beside  in  the  pubUc  house  answered  my  inquiry  about  the 
three  blast-furnaces  visible  from  where  we  sat.  He  was 
a  member  of  a  union,  getting  something  over  four  pounds  a 
week  and  evidently  doing  the  hardest  kind  of  work  up  on 
the  cupola.  He  was  drinking  his  third  great  pint  of  ale  and 
stoutly  refusing  the  urgings  of  his  chum  to  'ave  another,  be- 
cause of  his  trip  to  Bristol  some  years  ago,  when  the 

26 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES     27 

party  went  to  see  a  "pantomine" — "they  wuz  'av'n'  a  good 
time  over  there  in  them  days,  you  see" — ^got  to  drinking 
whiskey,  forgot  about  the  pantomime,  got  half-way  back  to 
the  station — "and  from  then  on  I  cawn't  recollect  a  single 
thing  except  that  I  woked  up  in  bed  back  'ome — ^and  don't 
like  wiskee  never  since." 

On  his  strong  suggestion  I  went  boldly  over  to  ask  for 
the  L:ish-American  in-  charge  of  the  furnaces,  and  on 
my  second  go  found  it  easy  to  get  into  the  plant  (about 
12,000  men)  past  the  policeman.  By  assuming  the  inde- 
pendence urged  by  my  barroom  friend,  I  sauntered  coolly 
along  past  the  gas  producers  and  found  myself  standing 
again  on  an  open-hearth  floor  and  talking  to  an  old  first 
helper  ("first  hand"  here).  He  had  been  a  puddler  back 
in  the  Calumet  district  around  Chicago,  had  seen  the  ton- 
nage rate  for  puddling  fall  from  fourteen  shillings  to  six  shil- 
lings six  pence  hapenny,  left  it  and  was  now  happy  in  his 
dignity  as  the  boss  of  his  furnace  and  earning  around  ten 
pounds  a  week. 

"We  calls  these  furnaces  smelters  or  melters  'ere.  No, 
they's  not  water-cooled  doors — ^ye  see,  these  furnaces  are 
twenty-five  years  awld  and  more  and  only  forty-ton  size. 
That  chargin'-machine  there  was  the  first  laid  down  in 
South  Wales,  years  and  years  ago,  of  a  Wellman  patent — 
(Cleveland,  U.  S.  A !)  Down  farther  there  ye'll  find  a  Tal- 
bot furnace,  as  good  as  any — ^holdin'  175  tons  and  over  here 
ye'll  see  a  first-class  pit." 

Sure  enough  the  pit  was  orderly  as  could  be;  the  floor  was 
a  fearful  mess  and  the  furnaces  most  forlorn  looking.  Alto- 
gether it  made  me  glad  that  when  I  finally  found  the  man 
in  charge  he  was  "full  up"  and  could  offer  no  job.  The 
rate  of  two  shillings  one  penny  per  hour  seemed  good  for 
the  easy  shovelling  the  labor  gang  was  doing  on  the  Talbot, 
which  had  fallen  in  after  a  good  long  service. 

The  boss  is  a  shrewd-looking  young  Welshman  who 


28  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

seemed  more  than  willing  to  swap  information  about  Eng- 
lish steelmaking  for  the  same  about  American.  He  seems 
to  have  the  highest  regard  for  the  unions  into  which  a 
worker  must  go  as  soon  as  he  is  promoted  up  out  of  the 
"general  labor"  gang.  (''We  mustn't  say  'common  labor' 
since  the  war.")  "They  keep  their  agreements  with  satis- 
faction and  are  quite  reasonable. 

''The  twelve-hour  day?  Well,  you  wouldn't  find  any- 
body in  the  country — employer  or  employee — ^who  would 
be  willing  to  go  back  to  it,  not  even  on  a  temporary  basis. 
No,  no,  -that  was  too  long.  .  .  .  No,  I  can't  say  that  we 
have  fewer  spills  or  accidents  since  the  change,  but  we  never 
did  have  'em  often  here,  anyway.  But  everybody's  hap- 
pier. Of  course  you  fellows'll  come  to  it.  But  I  notice  that 
your  costs  are  getting  up  very  fast.  Well,  we're  getting 
ready  to  catch  up  with  you  chaps  and  pass  you.  We've 
got  some  distance  to  go,  I  grant  you,  but  we're  getting 
ready  to  go  fast — ^with  that  Talbot,  for  instance,  when 
she's  goin'  right  she  certainly  puts  out  the  steel — and  we're 
putting  in  more,  with  a  big  mixing  furnace  soon.  Ten 
thousand  tons  a  week,  that's  what  we're  after." 

He  was  much  interested  in  my  account  of  our  tar  guns 
at  Stackton,  natural  gas,  etc.,  and  was  very  unhappy  at 
the  present  low  quahty  of  coal  coming  from  the  company's 
coUieries  a  few  miles  away. 

The  man  from  America  in  charge  of  as  tmnble-down  a 
collection  of  blasts  and  "stoves"  as  could  be  imagined,  is 
also  sure  the  eight-hour  day  is  coming  in  America.  The  old 
way  is  too  long,  everybody  is  persuaded  here,  especially 
when  the  work  is  as  hard  and  dirty  and  continuous  as  on 
a  "floor"  or  aroimd  the  "stoves."  Everybody  here  has  a 
maximum  of  forty-seven  hours,  with  some  only  forty-four, 
though  the  laborers  often  get  week-end  work  at  time  and  a 
half  which  puts  their  earnings  well  beyond  five  pounds. 
Every  third  week  all  are  required  to  take  a  double  turn  of 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES      29 

sixteen  hours  in  order  to  allow  their  shift  to  come  each 
week  at  a  different  period  of  the  twenty-four. 

Both  these  gentlemen  seem  to  feel  well  pleased  with  the 
way  the  "ton  workers"  "put  their  backs  to  their  jobs" 
in  the  shorter  day.  "First  hands  in  some  places  where 
things  are  working  right  are  getting  their  twenty  to  thirty 
pounds  every  week."  But  the  day  or  time  workers  are 
making  them  very  unhappy  by  their  easy-going  methods 
ever  since  the  war.  "Why,  they're  putting  up  plants  to- 
day covering  twice  the  space  but  designed  for  the  same  out- 
put— ^just  because  these  chaps  can't  be  made  to  work  ex- 
cept by  a  tonnage  rate — and  how  can  you  do  that  with 
the  'general  laborers'?" 

Over  in  the  river  were  numerous  boats  unloading  car- 
goes of  1,700  tons  or  thereabouts  of  ore  from  Bilbao,  Spain, 
or  from  South  African  fields.  Four  men  (in  place  of  a  usual 
six)  were  doing  a  wondrous  fine  job  of  shovelling  the  heavy 
stuff  into  a  small  bucket  holding  about  a  ton.  This  an- 
other man  lifted  with  a  hydrauhc  winch  according  to  the 
directions  of  another  man  who  lay  on  some  tarpaulins  and 
yelled  mutterings  to  "Lower!"  or  "Haul  away!"  and  then 
bore  it  over  to  a  Uttle  railway  car  built  for  twenty  tons  ( ! ) 
where  still  another  man  unloosed  it — ^altogether  an  extremely 
wasteful  use  of  man-power,  so  far  as  the  eye  could  judge. 
Some  of  the  ships  seemed  to  be  using  "clam-shells."  A  boy 
said  they  could  not  be  used  to  "grab"  up  this  particular 
kind  of  ore,  and  that  the  gang  of  men  working  through  the 
twenty-four  hours  could  imload  by  their  shovels  about 
400  tons.  To  my  surprise,  I  learned  that  these  men  below 
were  working  only  three  and  a  half  hours  per  day,  though 
even  then  they  were  lifting  the  extremely  heavy  stuff  so  fast 
and  sweatily  that  they  were  earning  six  "quid"  a  week. 
The  boy  loosing  the  bucket  earned  only  two  pounds,  two 
shiUings. 

"Well,  ye  see,  we're  all  ex-service  men  and  we've  been 


30  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

taken  on  only  because  everybody's  asked  to  give  us  jobs. 
So  we  work  only  while  the  other  regular  gangs  on  longer 
hours  are  eatin',  or  in  between  their  shifts.  Of  those  four 
down  inside,  all  are  too  old  to  take  the  regular  turns  except 
one.  A  man  has  to  be  an  ox  to  shovel  that  stuff  for  ten 
hours,  and  then  he's  an  old  man  at  thirty-five — with  the 
help  of  booze.  I'm  twenty — ^after  two  years  and  ten 
months  in  the  army.  And  I  come  home  to  find  nothing  to 
do !  That's  all  a  'grateful  king  and  country'  can  do !  And 
down  the  dock  there  you'll  fiind  a  lot  o'  Chinks  and  'niggers' 
doin'  a  man's  work  on  the  boats  just  because  they'll  do 
it  a  Httle  cheaper,  y'  understand? 

"No,  I  couldn't  learn  a  trade  because  my  old  man  he 
'went  out,'  you  know,  and  we  all  had  to  dig  in.  Here  you 
can't  get  a  skilled  job  unless  you  got  a  pocket  full  o'  papers 
— that's  what  the  imions  of  your  mates  do  for  you.  Years 
of  work,  they  mean,  these  certificates  of  indenture,  years  of 
work  at  five  or  six  shillings  the  week!  No,  it's  a  rotten 
old  country  to  go  through  hell  for — ^and  to  lose  two  of  your 
brothers  for.    Nobody  cares  for  the  workin'  man  nowadays." 

As  I  walked  out  I  met  a  black-faced  coal  handler  whose 
greatest  complaint  was  of  his  fellow  workers  reported  to 
be  lying  down  on  their  job  in  South  Wales  mines. 

"If  these  miners  cawn't  do  the  work  to  get  out  the  coal, 
they  should  get  out  of  the  coUieries  and  let  somebody  else 
in.  Without  us  'avin'  the  coal  'ere  to  send  out,  we  cawn't 
get  no  work  on  the  docks  ter  do,  yer  see.  That's  the  bane 
av  this  work.  Yer  never  know  one  day  to  another  whether 
ye  'ave  a  job  or  not.  Ye  go  down  and  'ave  a  look  'round 
to  see  where  you're  goin'  to  'ave  a  chawnce,  and  if  a  gang 
gets  together  the  mon  comes  along  and  simply  takes  a  half 
dozen  or  dozen  of  us  as  we  'appen  to  come.  'Twould 
seem  to  me  the  finest  kind  o'  world  thot  ony  mon  could 
want — to  get  up  outa  bed  in  the  momin'  and  know  a  job 
was  witin'  for  ye! 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES      31 

"I  fair  worry  meself  near  sick  every  day  to  know  'ave  I 
a  job  or  no.  'Twould  be  wort'  a  good  pound  a  week  less  to 
'ave  somethin'  steady  like.  .  .  .  The  out-of-work  money  ? 
Well,  it's  not  much — ^fifteen  shiUin'  a  pay  (week)  and  ye 
must  give  hom*s  to  signin'  the  book  every  day,  when  ye 
might  be  tryin'  to  find  work.  An'  if  ye  take  a  day's  job 
and  then  don't  find  another  fer  the  rest  o'  the  fortnight, 
y'  understand,  then  ye  cawn't  get  yer  thirty  shillins.'  Thot's 
the  law — ^no  money  except  for  the  whole  fortnight  out  o' 
work.  No,  I  don't  bother  about  it;  only  the  undersirables 
do — or  the  old  uns.  Sickness  money?  Well,  that's  only 
fifteen  bob  too;  that's  not  much  nowadays,  but  it's  a  lot 
when  ye're  sick  and  got  no  thin !" 

He  was  happy  in  a  new  job  and  a  fairly  steady  one  for 
the  time  being,  as  fireman  for  a  cold-storage  plant  on  the 
dock.  As  we  got  off  the  car  to  walk  down  the  street,  he 
apologetically  stopped  into  an  alley  to  untie  the  strings 
around  his  trousers  just  under  his  knees.  "I'd  forgot  all 
about  them,  you  know.  They  keep  a  man's  trousers  from 
getting  under  his  feet."  Very  carefully  he  turned  them 
up  to  keep  them  off  the  ground,  a  process  which  would  have 
worn  them  out  at  the  bottom  much  faster  than  if  tied,  or, 
after  the  manner  of  most  workers,  strapped,  at  the  knee. 

When  at  several  hotels  they  told  me,  one  after  another, 
they  were  "full  up,"  I. wondered  whether  it  was  because  of 
my  three  days'  beard.  I  hardly  blamed  them.  Later  I 
have  had  the  pleasm-e  of  sitting  here  in  the  parlor  of  a 
"temperance  hotel"  and  hearing  the  proprietor  tell  some 
inquirer  every  few  minutes  up  till  now — 11.30  P.  M. — the 
same  thing — "Full  up,  full  up;  not  a  free  bed  in  the  'ouse." 
I'm  in  only  because  the  bed  of  a  regular  boarder  is  not 
working  while  he's  on  a  holiday.  How  many  others  be- 
sides himself  have  used  it  since  his  departure  I  don't  know, 

but,  judging  from  the  looks  of  the no,  it's  not  linen, 

that's  sure ! — I  could  guess  it  was  several.    No,  the  bed  is 


32  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

not  changed  during  the  week — or,  perhaps  the  fortnight. 
Judging  from  the  appearance  of  the  landlord,  however,  I'll 
gamble  the  beds  are  uninhabited,  anyway — ^and  that's  some- 
thing. He  is  young,  but  has  been  a  seaman  for  nearly 
twenty  years. 

"After  getting  hit  by  torpedoes  three  times  and  missed 
twice,  I  promised  the  old  lady  I  was  fed  up  on  sea-farin' 
and  would  settle  down  as  soon  as  the  war  was  over,  d'  ye 
see?  So  here  I  am.  D'  ye  think,  sir,  that  those  two  gentle- 
men and  their  wives  were  respectable  people?  I  try  to 
stand  in  with  the  police  and  never  accept  any  man  and  wo- 
man that  drives  up  in  a  taxi,  never.  But  it's  hard  to  know 
whether  your  judgment's  right  oftentimes.  You  know  how 
it  is,  sir." 

Which  reminds  me  that  the  majesty  of  the  law  gave  me 
a  rather  cm*dly  moment  this  afternoon.  As  I  sat  in  the 
"pub"  a  young,  thin-faced  fellow  of  nervous  build  sat  down 
quickly  beside  me  and  whispered  something  very  hur- 
riedly about  "this  book  'ere"  as  he  shoved  a  small  blue 
tablet  and  lead-pencil  under  me,  then  as  hurriedly  stood 
up  to  the  bar  with  a  manifestly  nonchalant  expression.  I 
came  to  a  quick  understanding  of  it  all  an  instant  later.  Two 
policemen  entered  the  room!  I  had  a  quick  picture  of 
the  embarrassment  of  explaining  to  them  what  I  was  doing 
with  the  aforesaid  book.  Instinctively  I  reached  for  my 
pocket  to  see  if  I  had  anything  by  which  I  could  prove  my 
real  identity,  and  realized  keenly  the  disadvantages  of  liv- 
ing a  double  life.  But  they  passed  both  my  nervous  friend 
and  all  the  rest  of  us — including  a  nervous  American — and 
the  book  was  soon  back  in  its  owner's  pocket.  It  seems 
that  being  a  "bookie"  is  against  the  law,  but  they  are  ex- 
tremely numerous  for  all  that — ^with  many  bets  placed  in 
their  hands  in  lavatories  and  such  places.  There  are  doz- 
ens of  publications  which  are  read  zealously  by  most  of 
the  workers  for  their  "dope"  on  "Silver  Badge"  or  "Shjn- 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES      33 

ing  Star."  Some  of  my  educated  friends  there  in  London 
tell  me  it  comes  close  to  being  the  national  vice  and  flour- 
ishes among  the  women  as  well  as  the  men  of  all  classes. 

I  surely  feel  a  long,  long  way  even  from  those  friends  I 
left  back  there  in  the  East  End  in  London — and  so  extreme- 
ly distant  from  the  good  friends  back  in  clean,  bright)  hope- 
ful America  that — ^well,  the  less  I  think  about  that,  the 
better  for  my  happiness  at  this  moment. 

And  now  it's  up  two  flights  to  the  room  of  the  "attic 
simplicity"  we  used  to  talk  about  in  Greek  architecture — 
only  this  is  spelled  with  a  small  "a" — there  to  "wrap  the 
drapery  of  my  couch  about  me  as  one  who  lies  down  to 
pleasant  dreams" — I  don't  think! 

Swansea,  S,  Wales, 
Wednesday,  July  7,  1920. 

"First  off"  I  want  to  apologize  for  the  aspersions  I  cast 
on  that  room  of  the  "attic  simpUcity."  In  the  first  place 
it  gave  me  a  perfectly  good  night's  sleep  in  spite  of  its 
ball-wadded  pillow  and  mattress.  In  the  second  place,  it 
was  miles  higher  up  the  hill  of  respectabihty  than  where  I 
sit  now  with  my  tablet  on  my  knee,  writing  with  the  aid 
of  the  fading  dayhght  at  nine  o'clock. 

Hotel  after  hotel  was  "full  up,"  until  I  felt  lucky  to 
get  any  place  at  all,  especially  at  a  pubUc  house  bearing 
the  appetizing  name  of  "Leg  of  Lamb."  But  with  the 
painted  sign  the  appetizing  idea  comes  to  its  finish — its 
sad  finish.  When  the  barmaid  assigned  me  to  "number 
ten"  I  bhthely  asked  for  the  key  and  was  told  that  it 
was  "quite  all  right"  without  it.  A  httle  later  I  brought 
my  heavy  bag  up  the  stairs  to  find  in  my  supposedly  pri- 
vate room  four  of  the  dirtiest  and  smelliest  mattresses  and 
cots  it  has  been  my  lot  to  see  in  a  long  time — those  four  and 
nothing  more!  I  have  just  made  a  careful  inspection  for 
the  cleanest  of  the  four,  but  the  prospect  is  not  good  with 


34  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

even  the  best.  The  girl  has  just  told  me  that  already  two 
others  are  booked  up  for  the  room,  and  the  last  applicants 
I  noticed  were  particularly  bum-like.  It  surely  makes  a 
poor  prospect  for  the  night.  Still  it  all  goes,  I  suppose, 
with  the  bed  I've  chosen  to  he  on  for  the  summer,  so  I 
can't  complain.  Only  it  does  not  make  a  pleasant  pros- 
pect after  a  day  of  tramping  about  in  my  old  clothes  through 
the  mud  and  rain  of  what  looks  Uke  an  extremely  busy 
factory  district  up  and  down  the  Swansea  valley. 

My  companions  in  the  hostelry — and  presumably  my 
roonmaates  for  the  night — are  interesting.  On  the  whole, 
they  represent  the  lowest  platform  of  ''disrespectability" 
I've  come  close  to  since  the  down-and-out  ''stiffs"  or 
''regulars"  of  the  Boston-Liverpool  cattle  boats  of  the  col- 
lege vacations  twenty  years  ago.  The  one  I  spoke  to  first 
there  in  the  back  or  special  and  private  room  of  the  pubhc 
house  I  took  for  an  American.  He  is  Enghsh  in  spite  of 
fifteen  years  of  running  from  one  casual  job  in  lumber-camps 
and  elsewhere  between  New  York  and  Portland,  Oregon. 
At  this  moment  I  am  undecided  what  he  is.  Dm-ing  the 
afternoon  and  evening  he  has  grown  constantly  drunker, 
and  his  stories  of  his  various  accompUshments  steadily 
more  vivid.  I  guess  he's  a  deck-hand  on  a  trawler  which 
goes  out  for  fish,  when  he  is  not  absorbing  whiskies — eight 
at  last  accoimts  to-day — and  beers,  about  ten  pints  so  far, 
with  another  hour's  run  still  to  make  before  closing  time 
at  ten.  A  respectable  and  hard-working  young  Welshman 
who  is  keeping  him  company  carefully  stated  that  he  has 
no  pride  in  it,  but: 

"To-day  already  I've  'ad  about  fifteen  pints,  and  now 
— ^mind  ye,  I  don't  sye  it  to  boast,  but  merely  to  state  God's 
truth — ^before  I  go  to  bed  at  eleven,  I'll  have  without  doubt 
— ^and  it's  not  boasting  at  all,  I  am,  y'  oonderstawnd — 
without  doubt,  twenty  more!  No,  and  it  will  not  be 
a-mykin'  me  at  all  out  av  me  'ead  at  all.  Ye  see,  I  likes  the 
stuff  and  the  stuff  do  seem,  as  ye  might  sye,  to  like  me." 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES      35 

That  was  about  five  o'clock.  A  little  while  ago  he  was 
progressing  satisfactorily  with  his  programme — except  that, 
judging  from  his  all-inclusive  friendliness  to  the  gentlemen 
assembled  and  his  repeated  successes  in  kissing  Sarah,  the 
barmaid,  I'd  say  he  was  fairly  well  intoxicated.  It  has 
been  quite  hard  to  sit  and  talk  with  the  trawler  man  and  a 
young  and  intelhgent-looking  miner  while  our  friend  has 
been  boasting  loudly  near  by,  and  two  young  boys  at  an- 
other table  have  been  entreating  a  young  friend  to:  "Come 
on,  Jack,  'ave  a  Uttle  tea  and  then  we'll  all  carry  on.  Now 
that's  a  good  bye." 

To  which  Jack,  with  his  head  on  the  table,  murmurs  in- 
coherently about  the  pain  in  his  head  or  else  gets  rid  of  his 
overload  of  alcohol  by  vomiting  on  the  floor — without  the 
slightest  notice  from  barmaids  or  others ! 

Altogether  about  the  lowest  party  it  has  ever  seemed 
necessary  for  me  to  sit  in. 

"No,"  says  the  trawler  man,  "if  you  ask  me  I'll  tell  you 
that  even  my  mother  wasn't  sorry  to  see  me  go  'way  from 
the  house — the  fine  house — there  in  London  where  she  and 
my  brothers  live.  And  of  course  they  weren't.  They 
can't  'get'  me — not  they.  And  I  can't  'get'  them,  not 
them.  Well,  you  see,  I've  got  to  have  the  stuff — I  get 
drunk  every  day  I'm  on  shore  and  there's  no  way  out  of 
it.  And  then  my  nerves  are  all  shot  and  I  have  to  take  a 
dose  or  two  of  some  dope  to  get  some  sleep.  Not  a  dope 
fiend,  y'  understand.  No,  sir,  not  by  a  long  shot.  And 
if  I  could  get  back  to  the  States  I'd  get  some  money — a 
hundred  and  fifty  dollars — I  got  in  a  bank  there  and  never 

come  back  to  this  island.     Why  any  man  like  you 

should  come  over  here  I  don't  know.  Over  there  any 
Chink  will  give  a  down-and-outer  a  sandwich  and  here 
they  put  him  in  jail." 

The  strange  thing  is  that  he  has  none  of  the  appearance 
of  a  down-and-outer,  his  face  being  as  tanned  and  strong 
looking  and  his  eye  as  straight  as  one  could  wish. 


36  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

"I  fink  I'll  not  stay  long  in  Swansea,"  says  a  pathetic- 
looking  lad  in  the  shabbiest  of  coats,  a  torn  shirt,  and  be- 
draggled soft  collar — ^in  a  language  which  I  have  seen 
quoted  but  never  heard  before.  ''I  don't  want  Swansea 
(don't  like  it)  and  that's  God's  trufe.  No,  I'm  never 
touch-in'  of  the  stuff.  I  'ave  me  'character'  right  'ere 
in  me  pocket — 'of  gude  character,  sober  and  indoostrious ' 
it  sye,  'sober  and  indoostrious' — and  I'm  not  for  the  los- 
in'  o'  it,  you  know,  no  more  nor  anyfink.  In  furniture,  I 
am.  We  was  paid  to-day — six  quid;  so  I  'ave  bought  me  a 
suit — 'ere,  ye  can  see  the  waistcoat.  It's  second-'and,  but 
i'  God's  trufe,  brawnd-new.  Free  (three)  pound  eighteen  I 
paid  for  it.  I'll  'ave  it  on  me  in  the  morning,  I  wiU,  if  nofink 
'appens." 

"Of  one  himdred  men  ye'll  meet  'ere  in  South  Wales — 
at  least  among  the  colliers  (miners),"  says  the  white- 
coUared  Mr.  Powell,  who  admits  with  some  pride  that  he 
has  worked  his  years  "inside"  and  is  now  the  local  presi- 
dent or  chairman  of  the  miners'  union  in  a  near-by  colliery, 
"Of  one  hundred  of  them  'ere  ye'll  find  nine  and  ninety 
SociaUsts.  We  want  an  end  put  to  private  profit  and  we 
want  more  coal  got  out  for  the  people.  Ye  see,  'tis  like  this 
— do  ye  folly  me? — 'ere  must  be  twenty  yards  left  this 
side  the  boundary  of  a  private  property  and  then  twenty 
yards  the  other  side — that's  forty  good  yards  left  below 
that  the  country  will  need — and  that  the  country  could 
'ave,  d'  ye  see?  if  'twas  government  done.  Then  if  there's 
a  fall  in  an  entry,  the  chawnces  are  that  the  masters  will 
leave  it  lie  while  they  goes  on  into  another  part — and  that 
fall  and  the  coal  behind  it  never  gets  out  in  this  world." 

"May  I  interrupt  you?  Will  you  permit  me  'ere  to  sye," 
says  the  coUiery  clerk  of  the  thirty  pints  going  on  thirty- 
five,  "that  I'm  a-fearin'  we  mye  not  be  so  'appy  with  nashul'- 
zation — I  can't  sye  it  quite  correct,  gentlemen;  it's  a  'ard 
word  fer  a  sober  man  and  I  ahm  still  sober !    The  colliers 


BY  THE   SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES      37 

mye  not  like  government  operation  for  themselves,  I  sye, 
but  it's  God's  truth  that  the  shot-fire-men — I  wuz  one  fer 
many  years,  I  wuz — the  shot-fire-men,  they  ought  to  be 
paid  by  the  guv'ment.  Because  mony  times  I've  fired  shots, 
so  'elp  me,  I  'ave,  w'ere  I  took  big  chawnees  for  blowin' 
everybody  oop.  Now  gov'ment  shot-fire-men  would  not 
tyke  chawnees.    And  that's  God's  truth,  it  is,  gent 'men." 

"We  'ave  figures  to  show,"  says  the  red-haired  union 
official,  "that  the  owners — the  masters — ^in  this  district 
make  a  good  18/6  per  ton.  We  colliers  get  fer  a  ton  o' 
coal  two  shiUin';  we  buy  it  from  the  company  for  oiu'  own 
use  for  six  and  six.  The  pubhc  pays  over  two  pounds! 
That's  w'y  we're  not  workin'.    Too  much  profit." 

"Yes,  I  know  the  telegraft  is  government  operated  and 
*tis  not  good.  And  'ere's  a  case  to  prove  yer  p'int,  sir. 
Last  mont'  I  got  a  tellygram  at  seven  o'clock  that  me 
brother'd  sent  at  nine  that  mornin' — 'e  bein'  four  mile 
aways  from  me.  On  account  of  the  delaye,  ye  see,  I  'ad  to 
take  a  trap  at  twelve  shillin'  sixpence,  bein'  as  all  the  trines 
wuz  gone.  The  next  dye  the  girl  confesses  'twas  'er  fault 
and  awsks  me  not  to  sye  nothin' — w'ich  I  promises  to  do  if 
she  pyes  me  twelve  bob  and  sixpence  w'ich  I'd  paid  for 
the  trap,  y'  oonderstawnd  ? — ^w'ich  she  did." 

A  fairly  canny  Welshman — I  submit — ^probably  with  a 
whiff  of  Scotch  ancestry ! 

During'  the  day  I  asked  a  worker  how  about  the  coal 
men's  holding  up  business  at  the  ports:  the  objection  of 
my  black-faced  docker  friend  of  yesterday  was  supported 
by  a  morning  paper's  statement  of  increased  cost  of  living 
131  per  cent,  increased  wages  of  miners  155  per  cent,  with 
increased  wage  cost  per  ton  of  coal  produced,  267  per  cent. 
His  answer  was  as  immediate  as  it  was  definite: 

"Wull,  wot  about  all  the  bloody  profits  av  the  thievin' 
mawsters,  hye?  Them  as  sets  in  their  silks  and  satins 
somer's  down  in  London  and  never  r'ises  a  bloody  'awnd  ter 


38  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

do  a  dye's  work!  Wye  should  the  coUiers  break  their 
bawcks  ter  pile  up  the  pounds  for  thum?" 

"It's  little  enough  worrk  there  is,  aroond  'ere  in  the  port," 
said  a  laborer  waiting  in  the  rain.  "And,  God  strike  me 
dead,  uf  it  eyent  nothin'  but  a  bluudy  go  of  the  mawsters 
ter  brike  the  unions !  '  Now's  the  time ! '  that's  w'at  they're 
syin',  all  of  'um.  Strike  me,  but  it  mikes  me  sick  ter  see 
the  wye  all  these  bluudy  Welshmen  believe  every  bleedin' 
word  LUde  George  syes  to  'um.  And  the  king! — ^wull,  I 
never  lays  eyes  on  'im  and  never  wants  to,  but  from  'is 
pictures  I'll  sye  'e  looks  like  nothin'  but  a  bluudy  im- 
becyle,  God  strike  me !  I'm  fair  fed  up  on  this  country,  I 
am." 

I  took  some  supergreasy  "'am  and  eggs"  in  a  super- 
greasy  and  dirty  coffee-house  in  the  hope  of  further  con- 
versations, but  in  vain.  Through  the  rain  I  got  out  to  a 
nest  of  big  steel  and  tin-plate  works,  going  on  from  there  to 
a  plant  still  farther  up  the  beautiful  valley  to  which  I  had 
been  referred  as  one  of  the  biggest  makers  of  tin  plate  in 
England.  I  found  the  new  "welfare  man"  in  charge  of 
a  neat-looking  small  building  of  restaurants,  lavatories  and 
first-aid.  He  apparently  gives  most  attention  to  the  town's 
boy  scouts — all  the  town's  famihes  which  cover  the  valley's 
sides  are  the  "works'  famihes."  He  hopes  to  help  me  see 
his  superior  Friday.  Whether  it  will  be  possible  or  wise 
for  even  the  boss  to  let  an  imidentified  stranger  into  the 
fold  of  the  Httle  community  and  its  suspicions  of  outsiders 
and  their  sharing  of  the  community's  limited  supply  of  jobs, 
appears,  according  to  the  welfare  man,  to  be  a  serious 
question. 

Anyway,  I'll  hope.  Hope,  that's  the  word  to  take  with 
me  into  one  of  those  dreadful  beds — after  I  go  down  and 
see  how  my  pals,  drunk  and  sober,  are  prospering  down- 
stairs. 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES      39 

Thursday  Night, 
July  8th, 
Swansea. 

The  committee  can  certainly  report  progress  I 

The  trawler  man  was  far  gone  and  claimed  to  be  making 
barrels  of  money  from  covert  sales  of  a  drug  that  "will  cure 

every  d disease  you  ever  heard  of,  and  more/^    That 

bank-account  is  now  reported  at  $350!  The  master  of 
the  thirty-five  pints  was  singing,  toasting  everybody  in 
sight  and  kissing  Sarah  every  second  time  she  passed  him, 
though  still  claiming  that  no  amount  of  beer  affected  him. 
In  further  evidence  of  what  the  modern  psychologists 
would  probably  call  his  highly  active  though  somewhat 
temporary  and  unstable  "superiority  complex"  he  was 
relating  and  re-relating  how: 

*'Me  brother-in-law  been  a  bookie,  y'  understawnd !  "Well, 
on  the  very  day  o'  the  rice  'e  wires  me  the  tip.  So  I  tikes 
10  poimds — ^awnd  I  gets  me  me  330 !  Of  course  when  I 
leaves  the  pHce,  I  'ad  only  three  of  them  left  on  me,  awnd 
I  was  a  bit  unsteady  Hke.  But  all  me  friends  been  'appy 
— I'll  say  that  for  them — awnd  for  meself ,  too.  'Ere,  Miss ! 
a  pint  o'  mild  all  roimd !  'Yes,'  I  say  to  meself,  'I'll  take 
this  tip  fer  once!'  Me  brother-in-law  bein'  a  bookie,  ye 
see,  awnd  mikin'  a  cool  fifty  thousand  on  it,  too" — etc.,  etc., 
to  the  accompaniment  of  many  a  "Wull  now !"  or  "I  sye !" 
from  the  admiring  and  envious  crowd  of  us  about  him. 

"Before  the  war  I  wuz  a  good  mon  and  never  cared  for 
this  stuff,"  a  young  man  assured  me  when  fhe  pubhcan 
had  refused  to  give  him  a  bed  without  seeing  his  money. 
"But  if  ye've  money  and  respect  yerself,  let  me  tell  you  to 
keep  aways  from  the  army,  and  from  Uquor." 

Sarah,  of  the  gentle  face,  very  certainly,  I  regret  to  re- 
port, gave  a  pronounced  "hie"  with  her  "yes"  when  I 
asked  about  leaving  my  bag  in  the  kitchen  instead  of  tak- 
ing it  up  to  the  alleged  bedroom. 


40  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Up  in  the  "dormitory"  I  joined  my  sleeping  pals  by  get- 
ting into  the  one  empty  bed — not  the  one  I  had  picked  as 
the  least  shocking.  After  I  had  removed  my  shoes  and  laid 
my  coat  inside  the  covers  where  I  could  keep  my  hand  on 
it,  I  tried  to  keep  my  imagination  from  following  too  far 
back  into  the  past  of  the  inescapable  smell  of  bum  carried 
by  the  dirty  blanket — ^nor  too  far  forward  into  the  night. 
Strangely  enough,  nothing  kept  any  of  us  awake  except 
the  ominous  coughings  of  the  old  man.  In  the  morning  it 
was  possible  to  take  a  wash  and  a  shave  in  the  pubUc  lava- 
tory where  a  worker  advised  me  that  '' Yer  cawn  get  every 
sort  of  job  in  Birmingham.  In  the  Tyre  Works  I  mykes 
ten  quid  a  week,  now  that  I  can  turn  out  good  tyres."  I 
helped  turn  up  the  sleeves  of  two  one-armed  near-bums 
— the  lavatory's  keeper  was  also  one-armed.  I  noticed  that 
they  seemed  to  feel  as  much  as  any  one  could  the  inde- 
cency of  their  imshaved  faces.  Later,  the  worker  refused 
my  offer  of  razor  with  ''Thanks,  but  I  wouldn't  want  an- 
other to  use  mine,  so  I  wouldn't  use  yours.  This  country's 
too  full  o'  disease." 

The  view-point  of  the  miners  hereabouts  is  said  to  hit 
closely  on  the  troubles  which  American  boats  are  having 
in  obtaining  cargoes  of  coal.  Their  waits  often  run  up  to 
45  day  of  demurrage  cost  at,  sometimes,  $600  per  day !  The 
waits  now  average  24^  days.  Some  coal  "masters"  have 
told  close  friends  of  enormous  war  profits:  "In  two  weeks 
we  made  enough  from  our  export  coal  to  equal  an  ordinary 
year's  profits."  Another  told  of  pre-war  wage  costs  of 
11  shillings  per  ton,  post-war  38  shillings,  with  post-war  ex- 
port price  of  105  shillings  ($26).  That  would  make  the 
red-haired  coUier's  statement  of  18/6  of  profit  seem  mild. 
Local  house  coal  sells  at  60  shillings  ($12)  per  ton  with  an 
additional  50  cents  for  putting  into  the  cellar.  On  the  other 
hand,  the  papers  give  reports  of,  for  instance,  1,200  miners 
out  of  2,000  as  paying  income  tax  on  10  pounds  a  week. 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES     41 

An  American  official  from  a  near-by  port  is  very  thought- 
fully on  his  job,  which  involves,  in  turn,  the  whole  matter 
of  other  people's  jobs. 

"The  American  sailor  expects  all  the  comfort  of  home 
on  board  ship.  Several  lately  complained  to  me  of  having 
eggs  for  breakfast  only  twice  a  week.  I  have  had  to 
tell  them  how  we've  not  had  eggs  twice  a  quarter  at  my 
home.  At  fourpence  each,  I  can't  afford  it — I  guess  it's 
because  I  work  in  your  colher  friend's  nationalized  industry ! 
All  that  the  Chambers  of  Commerce  and  the  other  com- 
mercial interests  have  persuaded  our  employer — Uncle 
Sam — to  do,  is  to  increase  our  wages  by  twenty-nine  per 
cent  since  pre-war! 

*'So  far  almost  no  Americans  are  going  to  sea.  Seldom 
will  a  crew  of  fifty  show  as  many  as  ten  born  or  natural- 
ized Americans.  .  .  .  No,  the  LaFoUette  Act  simply  says 
that  twenty-five  per  cent  must  know  enough  to  under- 
stand ordinary  English  commands: — it  says  nothing  about 
American  citizenship.  Then  Article  1  lets  even  that  go  by 
saying  that  in  foreign  ports  a  captain  can  fill  vacancies 
with  anybody  he  can  get  of  equal  or  better  standing  as 
sailors.  So  to-day  here  an  American  boat  is  paying  off  its 
Americans  and  also  paying  their  wages,  fare,  and  subsis- 
tence back  to  the  original  port  where  booked,  taking  on 
Chinese  here  in  their  places  for  a  run  into  the  Orient, — 
and  saving  money." 

Like  practically  all  officials  I've  ever  seen  of  the  same 
type,  he  is  hard-worked,  with  assistants  promised  but  still 
lacking,  with  facts  hard  to  get  in  what  claims  to  be  the 
metallurgical  centre  of  the  world. 

Partly  because  from  where  I  stood  she  could  not  see  my 
rough-looking  trousers,  a  landlady  gave  me  a  room  to-day 
at  a  better  hotel,  where  the  sheets  are  not  changed  over- 
often,  but  nevertheless  infinitely  better  than  the  "Leg  of 
Lamb." 


42  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Have  been  inquiring  about  tin-plate  works  which  are 
reported  to  be  practically  household  afifairs  and  to  use 
waterwheels,  but  so  far  in  vain. 

Have  just  found  that  the  collier  on  vacation  is,  according 
to  schedule,  well  toward  his  thirty-ninth  pint  and  drunk 
enough  to  be  boasting  that  ''The  proprietor — 'e's  a  friend  of 
mine,  y'  understawnd — 'e  'as  promised  me  two  drinks  av 
brawndy  after  closin'  time  at  ten  to-night."  He  also  speaks 
with  a  combination  of  manly  pride  and  due  emotion  of  his 
having  had  seven  children  and  lost  five,  the  two  remaining 
living  with  his  father. 

"Not  till  me  money  roons  out,"  he  says  when  you  ask 
how  soon  he  goes  back  to  work. 

Friday,  July  9, 
Swansea. 

A  fine  combination  of  trains,  buses,  and  a  lot  of  walking 
between  the  beautifully  patterned  and  verdant  hills  up 
to  the  plant  and  the  welfare  worker  for  the  hoped-for  job 
as  "general  labor." 

"Now  that  you've  asked  me,"  the  owner  said,  "I  must 
refuse  in  order  not  to  appear  to  be  spying  on  my  men. 
Otherwise,  I'd  have  had  no  objections."  The  trouble  is 
that  as  a  bum  I'd  have  had  no  chance  with  any  of  his  offi- 
cials without  his  0.  K.  It's  hard  luck,  but  I  hope  not 
typical. 

The  head  of  the  committee  made  up  of  representatives 
of  the  six  imions  in  the  plant,  whom  the  owner  then  arranged 
for  me  to  see,  was  most  worth  while — a  middle-aged  ca- 
pable, well-spoken  clear-eyed  Welshman,  properly  proud  of 
his  having  worked  up  in  thirty  years  to  his  position  in  charge 
of  the  teeming  or  pouring  of  all  the  steel  into  the  ingot 
moulds  in  the  "pit"  of  the  "smelting  shop"  or  open- 
hearth  department  (at  about  nine  or  ten  pounds  per  week). 

"Entirely  right  you  are,"  he  interjected,  quick  as  a  flash, 
when  I  said  I  believed  that  men's  attitudes  toward  pol- 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES      43 

itics  and  almost  everything  imaginable  were  largely  the 
result  of  their  job  and  its  conditions.  "We  'ave  mony 
Socialists  'ere,  sir,  but  they  don't  work  at  it,  as  ye  might 
say.  'Tis  because  of  the  friendly  relations  between  the 
owners  'ere  and  all  av  us  men — with  never  'ardly  any- 
thing that  cannot  be  straightened  out.  Now  down  at 
Briton's  Ferry  I've  always  said  the  best  supporter  of  the 
Independent  Labor  Party  is*a  certain  employer  who's  al- 
ways calling  it  names  and  knockin'  it  about.  As  long  as 
'e  does  so  every  worker  knows  'e  ought  to  be  for  it,  that 
unpopular  'e  is. 

"The  most  trouble  we  'ave  'ere  is  from  the  engineers 
unions  and  such,  that  get  their  orders  from  outside  of  steel. 
Everthing  else  we  can  generally  settle  on — ^and  usually 
win — ^with  the  masters.  The  tin-plate  workers  are  now 
asking  for  a  six-hour  turn  and  fifty  per  cent  hourly  increase 
— ^with  tonnage  rates  on  the  cold  rolls,  not  box  rates.  But 
mony  workers,  especially  if  they're  Marxians,  don't  want 
piece  rates.  Here  we're  mostly  on  six-hour  turn — in  the 
sheet  mill — but  we  can't  find  enough  men  to  run  full.  In 
the  smelting  shop  where  the  job  is  irregular  we've  been  on 
eight  hours  so  long  I  can  'ardly  remember  the  long  turns. 
In  betweens,  the  boys  will  play  cards — and  I'm  wanting  a 
room  near  by  where  they  can  do  it  and  be  'andy  when 
wanted — ^with  mebbe  meals  served  there,  seein'  that  al- 
most nobody  comes  'ere  to  the  canteen  (restaurant).  Just 
as  nobody  ever  comes  to  the  first-aid  room  'ere. 

"Safety  work  we  don't  'ave,  and  what  they  call  *  wel- 
fare' is  only  just  starting  in  the  country.  We've  all  been 
too  busy  talkin'  wages,  wages.  But  now  we're  seeing  that 
more  wages  is  impossible  unless  the  masters  will  do  away 
with  some  of  their  obsolete  works.  .  .  .  Yes,  two  drink- 
in'  fountains  we  'ad,  a  long  time  ago,  and  the  boys  stole 
'em,  so  we  never  'ad  'em  since.  .  .  .  Yes,  wages  and 
hours  we've  been  getting.    Better  conditions  must  come 


44  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

next — right  'ere  we  'ave  some  of  the  most  democratic  em- 
ployers in  all  England,  I  will  say,  but  a  very,  very  old  shop 
and  equipment." 

The  metallurgist  says  any  outsider  in  the  village  at- 
tracts stares  and  other  attentions  for  months — ^most  un- 
pleasantly— also  that  an  Enghshman  is  hardly  less  for- 
eign than  an  American.  Outside  the  technical  men  like 
himself  who  have  to  be  taken  where  found,  the  better 
jobs  here  in  Wales  are  supposed  to  be  pretty  jealously 
taken  by  Welshmen,  with  the  lowest  jobs  of  ''general  labor" 
left  to  the  Irish  and  the  Enghsh !  He  finds  the  ease  with 
which  any  and  all  of  the  workers  can  get  to  the  owners 
over  the  department  heads  trying;  with  the  head  melter 
likely  to  refuse  point-blank  to  make  steel  any  other  way 
than  what  "is  the  wye  we  been  doin'  it  for  ten  year. "  He 
says  the  union  representatives  make  a  welfare  man  rather 
needless  in  the  matter  of  wage  rates  and  industrial  rela- 
tions generally,  so  that  he  mainly  looks  out  for  the  youths 
at  a  very  considerable  salary.  A  very  clean-cut,  high- 
minded  chap  the  metallurgist  seems,  with  rather  a  sur- 
prisingly friendly  disposition  toward  government  service 
because  of  the  much  greater  security  of  the  civil-service 
job  than  one  with  private  employers.  Which  reminds  me 
that  the  best  educated  of  university  young  men  in  London 
spoke  of  the  very  stiff  exams  given  by  the  government  for 
assigning  the  highest  winners  to  London  "berths,"  the  next 
best  to  the  provinces  like  India,  Egypt,  etc.  .  .  .  "They 
pay  as  much  as  350  to  400  pounds  ($l,750-$2,000)  with 
small  increases  each  year — ^which  is  very  good,  you  know." 

All  of  which  appears  to  mean  that  the  job  constitutes 
over  here  a  form  of  property  which  is  immensely  more  im- 
portant than  at  home — so  much  so  that  once  obtained  it 
is  little  likely  to  be  given  up  as  blithely  as  with  us,  and 
considerably  more  likely  to  be  passed  down  to  the  children 
like  a  .piece  of  land.    Apparently,  too,  the  unions  have 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES      45 

pretty  much  succeeded  in  exercising  at  least  as  much  con- 
trol as  "the  masters"  over  the  job  so  as  to  give  the  indi- 
vidual holder  of  it  the  utmost  assurance  of  security  which 
market  conditions  will  permit.  The  foreman's  right  to 
discharge  without  the  approval  of  the  union  doesn't  seem 
to  exist  at  all,  at  all. 

''At  Port  Talbot,  ye'U  find  a  brand-new  smelting  shop. 
I'd  try  it  if  I  was  you,"  advised  a  young  English  worker 
who  was  complaining  of  the  old-f  ashionedness  of  the  works 
with  its  tumble-down  equipment,  its  little,  numbered  tin 
cups  in  which  it  was  handing  out  the  weekly  pay  of  about 
$40,000,  and  its  general  air  of  being  a  small-town,  family 
party  for  sitting  tight  on  the  best  jobs  against  all  outsiders 
from  such  foreign  ports  as  America,  England,  etc! 

Swansea, 
Sunday,  July  11. 

It's  a  sordid  picture  yesterday  gave  of  this  district's  work- 
ing and  community  life.  It  will  be  worth  a  lot  of  dis- 
comfort to  see  if  the  two  parts  of  that  picture  are  the  blood 
relatives  of  cause  and  effect,  and  if  so,  how. 

After  an  hour  of  the  train's  waiting,  changing,  and  mov- 
ing I  "got  down"  at  Llanelly — (pronounced  by  the  Welsh 
somewhat  as  though  spelled  "Klanecklay" — the  "Kl" 
comes  from  putting  the  tongue  to  the  roof  of  your  mouth 
and  going  like  a  gander) — famous  as  another  centre  of  the 
tin-plate  industry.  While  getting  an  extra  half-sole  on 
my  shoes,  the  cobbler  and  a  caller  did  the  honors: 

"Me  fawther  worked  at  B in  Indiana,  for  some 

years  right  after  the  McKinley  tariff  began  to  bring  the 
sheet  and  tin-plate  mills  here  to  a  standstill,  and  to  take 
the  workers  away  from  here  to  America  by  the  thousands. 
He  brought  us  back  with  him  when  I  was  twelve.  He's 
a  roller  boss  now  and  wants  to  stick,  though  me  mother'd 
start  back  to-morrow,  and  so  would  I.    It's  all  class  here. 


46  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

A  boy  that's  a  clerk  won't  see  you  when  you're  on  the 
street,  though  he  will  when  you're  on  the  job — ^and  no 
common  worker  ever  breaks  into  college  here — though  I 
am  goin'  to  night  school  this  winter. 

"If  a  man  don't  drink  in  the  pubs  there's  nothin'  to  do 
at  all — except  the  movies.  We're  teetotallers  now.  Lots 
o'  the  boys  come  back  from  the  army  drinkin'  more  than 
ever  before — ^regular  wasters  they  are  now,  a  disgrace  to 
their  old  friends." 

"Awnd  uf  they  don't  dr-r-ink,"  put  in  the  cobbler  as  he 
ate  the  bread  and  fried  fish  his  wife  had  brought  him, 
"then  they  dr-r-ess.  I'm  not  fer  mykin'  more  money 
thon  to  get  me  lodgins  and  meals,  awnd  I  don't  like  to  see 
such  spendin's  and  carryin's  on  as  some  of  the  army  byes — 
Aye,  I  notice  that  if  they  go  wye  to  America,  they  stawnd 
up  better  with  their  chist  out — fifty  per  cent  better  than 
before.  I  fancy  'tis  because  they  'awve  the  chawnce  ter 
be  more  monly  and  independent  thon  'ere." 

"Well,  you've  better  education,  there,"  added  the  boy 
again,  "and  education  is  what  the  working  man  needs. 
StiU,  what's  the  use  of  it  where  I  am  if  never  can  a  worker 
get  into  the  offices  and  responsibility?  My  brother  stayed 
in  school  for  years  longer  than  I  and  he  comes  up  this 
week  for  his  captaincy  exam.  If  only  some  'un  had  made 
me  stay  in  school !  But  I  wanted  to  earn  money.  I  wanted 
to  be  a  man ! 

"Say,  how'd  you  like  to  see  the  place  where  I  work?" 

It  was  almost  too  good  to  be  true — thus  to  have  a  guide 
right  into  the  mills.  He  said  it  was  the  biggest  of  its  kind 
in  the  town,  but  it  had  only  a  few  fairly  small  single  mills 
for  small  sheets  which  could  be  put  from  the  back  door 
into  sailing  boats  direct  for  Liverpool.  It  was  surprising 
to  see  all  the  "opening,"  or  separating  of  the  rolled-together 
sheets  done  by  girls  equipped  with  leather  hand  holds 
with  pieces  of  lead  where  they  separated   the  corners. 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES     47 

They  worked  fast  and  seemed  to  find  slight  use  for  knives. 
Almost  none  of  the  rollers,  including  the  ''heaver-over" 
or  "behinder,"  as  they  call  the  catcher  who  returns  the 
sheets  to  the  roller  or  "rougher,"  and  the  finishers  or 
"dockers,"  seemed  to  use  any  gloves — ^and  to  date  I've 
seen  no  canvas  gloves  anywhere. 

"They  won't  beheve  me  when  I  tell  about  their  chang- 
ing rolls  in  a  half-hour  or  so  in  America.  Here  it  takes  ten 
or  twelve  hours — ^the  Gantry  crane  doesn't  seem  equipped 
for  it.  The  union  heads  of  the  steel  workers,  the  en- 
gineers, steam  and  electricity  men,  and  two  or  three  others 
work  everything  out  with  the  manager — ^he's  a  'washout' 
that  everybody  hates.  If  two  men  fight  they  lose  their 
job.  That  sometimes  happens  because  the  rule  about 
bringin'  in  beer  is  practically  not  enforced  since  the  war, 
so  anybody  can  get  it.  But  outside  o'  that,  I  don't  know 
anybody  that's  ever  been  fired  around  'ere  since  I  came.  A 
man  gets  his  job  and  sticks  to  it,  generally.  Every  roller 
boss  manages  his  men,  too,  with  almost  nothing  for  the 
master  to  say,  though  the  roller  don't  pay  'em  here  as  in 
some  places.  If  we  have  any  complaints  we  go  to  our 
roller  boss  and  he  goes  to  the  union  head,  who  goes  to  the 
chairman  of  their  conmaittee  and  if  it  ain't  yet  straightened 
out,  he  goes  to  the  manager." 

No  drinking-fountains  nor  any  signs  of  sanitary  or  safety 
matters  were  evident.  The  crane  was  very  busy,  but  en- 
gine, equipment,  and  building  were  all  in  poor  condition. 
The  "washout"  came  up  to  us  but  gave  no  sign.  There 
was  no  gate  policeman.  So  we  walked  calmly  into  another 
plant  where  small  rolls  were  handhng  very  small  sheets 
with  a  great  crowd  of  girls  about  fifteen  and  sixteen  years 
old — earning  about  thirty  or  forty  shillings — separating 
them,  sorting  and  packing  quite  vigorously.  Here  they  had 
an  ancient  engine  of  the  old  upright  or  vertical  vintage. 

"When  they  want  to  oil  it,  they  have  to  stop  it — and 


48  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

they  do  about  three  tunes  a  turn,"  my  guide  said.  One  of 
the  workers  said  he  had  worked  some  years  in  Youngs- 
town.  It  certainly  seemed  an  old-time  plant,  with  the 
necessity  of  considerable  ''engineering  revision"  before 
more  wages  or  more  comfort  and  eflficiency  would  be  easy 
for  the  employers  on  anything  but  a  "seller's  market" 
ready  to  pay  high  for  its  goods. 

Altogether  the  town,  with  a  large  part  of  its  workers 
going  black-faced  through  the  dirty  streets  or  into  its  dingy 
shops  for  the  high-priced  but  second-rate  foods  displayed, 
gave,  I  must  say,  a  bad  impression.  It  seemed  unbeUev- 
able  that  it  could  claim  over  30,000  souls.  I  was  glad  to 
get  away,  though  sorry  to  part  from  my  attractive  young 
worker  and  the  older  and  more  serious  cobbler — the  latter 
was  properly  proud  of  his  having  sold  "almost  tons  av 
roobber  'eels — awnd  Ah've  fifty  pounds'  worth  a-comin'  in 
now." 

Both  confirmed  the  stories  that  the  Welsh  look  down 
upon  the  EngUsh.  For  one  thing  "Wales  was  Wales  be- 
fore England  was  England — when  WilHam  the  Conqueror 
subdued  the  EngUsh,  he  merely  drove  the  Welsh  back  into 
these  mountains  and  let  them  alone — he  couldn't  subdue 
us."  Both  are  little  hopeful  of  getting  out  of  their  group, 
but  seem  to  feel  sHght  bitterness  and  think  Httle  Socialism 
about  it. 

Back  in  town  here,  was  glad  to  find  many  magazines  and 
quite  a  few  readers  in  the  public  Hbrary.  After  supper  the 
streets  were  jammed.  Before  dark  I  took  courage  to  go 
down  what  is  called  the  Strand,  where  murders  are  said  to 
be  frequent.  I  saw  more  male  and  female  wrecks  of  human- 
ity, drunk  and  sober,  with  dirty  children  about  them,  than 
ever  in  my  life.  One  middle-aged  woman  was  singing 
when  she  wasn't  swearing,  while  another  old  hag  scarcely 
three  feet  high  had  to  bend  her  neck  wofully  from  a  fear- 
ful crook  in  her  back  in  order  to  let  the  passer-by  see  her 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES     4d 

horrid  puffy  cheeks  and  her  chin  covered  by  an  inch-long 
yellow  beard !  Policemen  have  orders  never  to  come  down 
here  except  in  twos. 

Up  on  the  main  streets  every  so  often — ^and  with  increas- 
ing frequency  as  the  evening  grew — the  crowd  would 
gather  to  see  a  drunken  brawl  or  to  let  the  police  trundle 
away  on  a  two-wheeled  stretcher  some  dead-drunk  worker. 
It  gave  me  a  shock  to  see  one  drunken  woman  step  out  of 
a  pub  to  browbeat  her  sober  husband  for  money.  When 
she  got  it  she  re-entered  the  saloon  to  get  still  drunker, 
while  her  husband  walked  on  shamefacedly.  At  about 
eleven  nearly  every  young  man  that  passed  me  at  the 
upper  end  of  the  main  street  was  reeling,  if  he  wasn't  sing- 
ing drunkenly  or  explaining:  "Ah'm  a-goin'  'ome  to  me 
mother  (hie) — me  lovin'  mother — ^it's  'er  that's  waitin'  fer 
me  noo  (hie)." 

"Oi'm  a-lovin'  o'  that  mon  in  there !  It's  'e  thot  gov  me 
this !"  screamed  a  drunken  hag,  pointing  in  to  the  pub  and 
disclosing  a  bottle  of  whiskey  under  her  indescribably 
filthy  coat. 

About  the  only  sober  people  during  the  later  hours  after 
pub-closing  at  ten  seemed  to  be  the  numerous  young  girls 
talking  to  the  boys  and  ''ta-ta"-ing  their  young  and  mostly 
unsteady  friends  good  night.  Singing  and  reeling  along 
would  come  whole  platoons  of  boys  and  young  men  help- 
ing to  hold  each  other  up.  The  streets  were  filled  with  the 
sound  of  singing  of  either  the  groups  on  the  sidewalk  or  in 
the  chars-^-bancs.  (These  are  huge  trucks  fitted  with  rows 
of  seats  for  as  many  as  thirty  or  fifty  persons.  At  low 
rsttes  they  run  holiday  trips  in  every  direction,  evidently 
with  great  success,  in  spite  of  the  serious  accidents  caused 
often  by  the  drivers  taking  too  great  advantage  of  the  fre- 
quent stops  at  the  roadside  pubs.)  But  for  all  the  music, 
the  impression  from  the  combined  reports  of  ear  and  eye  is 
not  one  of  a  happy  people. 


50  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

*'In  the  army,  sure  we  got  rum  in  winter  three  times  a 
day,"  my  trawler  man  explained  earlier  in  the  evening, 
"with  a  special  dose  before  every  action.  The  Germans 
were  always  drunk  when  they  came  over — and  I've  seen 
himdreds  of  their  beer  bottles  on  their  battle-fields.  Of 
course,  the  EngUsh  navy  has  booze,  too." 

I  induced  him  and  a  drunken  friend,  who  also  blames  the 
army  for  his  taste  for  drink  and  also  for  making  his  home 
town  too  dull,  to  take  a  walk  so  as  to  get  away  from  the 
constant:  "Fill  'em  up  again,  miss! — two  pints  o'  mild 
and  a  half  pint  o'  bitters !"  It  was  worth  while  to  see  the 
trawler  man  straighten  up  with  the  pride  of  his  job  as  he 
told  us  the  fine  points  of  one  of  his  beloved  trawlers  as  we 
stood  on  the  dock  above  it. 

"Here's  where  I  know  what  I'm  talkin'  about,  you 
betcher  life !  To  hell  with  the  British  navy !  'Twas  these 
trawlers  won  the  war !  They  kept  cleanin'  up  the  sea  for 
the  bigger  boats.  Now,  you  see  that?  Well,  that's  how 
you  pull  the  fish  in  and  sort  'em.  And  there — the  fish  in 
that  box  everybody  tmiis  in  and  skins  and  then  sells  'em 
to  the  low-down  fried-fish  joints — ^where  I  eat,  too  d —  often, 
I'll  say.  And  the  money  goes  to  the  crew.  And  there,  ye 
see  that — "  etc.,  etc. 

"But  there  we  was  with  them  low-down  foreigners,"  says 
our  drunken  partner  as  they  head  toward  another  pub, 
"and  stili  they  could  talk  more  languages  than  we  bloody 
English !  Somethin's  wrong,  I  tell  you,  with  our  education, 
or  we  wouldn't  have  to  go  to  war  to  find  how  much  we 
fellows  here  don't  know." 

"WeU,  I'm  for  the  army,"  says  the  trawler  man,  "all 
except  the  bloody  fightin' !  But  it's  more  education  we  all 
want — ^not  more  religion — ^more  education,  and  better." 

Yes,  there's  something  good  in  such  men.  The  sur- 
prising thing  is  how  that  something  good  seems  to  keep 
moving  about  in  them  more  boldly  when  they're  drunk 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES      51 

than  when  they're  sober!  "Oh,  I  sye,  if  only  me  mother, 
me  poor  mother,  could  see  me  now!"  our  third  man  kept 
sajang  oftener  and  oftener  the  drunker  he  grew. 

But  what  I  want  to  know  is  how  far  the  job  of  earning  a 
living  in  a  factory  town  such  as  Llanelly  or  Swansea,  and 
how  far  the  job  of  fighting  for  their  coimtry  in  the  army  or 
navy,  is  responsible  for  these  men  and  for  such  an  un- 
pleasant picture  of  degraded  humanity  as  last  night  gave  of 
Swansea,  the  cradle  of  the  world's  tin-plate  industry. 

Swansea, 

Monday,  July  12,  1920. 

Few  days  could  crowd  in  more  of  information  and  opin- 
ion from  a  wide  variety  of  standpoints  than  to-day.  Such 
vibrating  between  the  workers  and  the  experts  or  *Hhe 
knowers"  gives  a  better  understanding  of  the  whole  indus- 
trial problem  than  being  just  a  worker.  It  is,  of  course, 
much  more  necessary  where,  as  here,  the  view-points  of 
both  groups  are  equally  unknown  to  a  stranger. 

One  rather  prominent  citizen  who  has  hved  in  America 
agreed  that  while  many  residents  feel  that  drunkenness 
has  considerably  lessened,  there  is  nevertheless  an  amount 
of  it  that  is  sickening  to  a  newcomer.  His  daughter  had 
to  come  to  Swansea  to  see  her  first  drunken  man.  The 
local  chief  constable  here  spent  most  of  his  evenings  at  the 
same  hotel  and  usually  walked  out  at  closing  time  on  very 
unsteady  legs!  The  number  is  considerable,  however,  and 
increasing,  he  said,  of  teetotallers — they're  called  "tee- 
tees." 

"What  your  working  friends  say  about  imsatisfactory 
education  here  is  certainly  true,  I  beUeve.  The  school  books 
my  children  bring  home  are,  I'm  sure,  away  below,  in 
printing,  in  contents,  in  method,  the  worst  I  had  as  a  child, 
and  far  below  what  your  children  are  doubtless  enjoying 
now.   Everybody  tells  me  I  must  not  think  of  sending  them 


52  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

to  the  'board'  or  city  school  here,  but  to  a  boarding-school 
— it's  called  the  pubUc  school,  though  it's  very  expensive 
and  private — at  the  age  of  eleven.  By  George,  I'll  teach 
them  myself  before  I'll  let  them  go  through  that  critical 
period  of  adolescence  outside  of  our  family  circle.  I  don't 
care  if  that  is  the  method  among  the  best  families  here !" 

Later  I  saw  figures  which  told  the  tale  of  the  trouble 
caused  this  district  by  the  McKinley  tariff.  The  thousands 
of  hundredweights  of  tin  plate  shipped  to  America  tumbled 
suddenly  from  five  and  six  to  one  and  two,  commencing  in 
1896,  the  slump  being  made  up  gradually  by  increased 
shipments  to  Japan  and  other  countries. 

"The  best  thing  that  ever  happened  to  us!"  was  the 
comment  of  an  official  of  a  manufacturer's  group  a  few 
minutes  later.  "That  McKinley  tariff  made  us  go  out 
and  sell  our  sheets  to  so  world-wide  a  market  that  now 
nothing  less  than  a  world-wide  disturbance  could  hurt 
more  than  a  fraction  of  our  present  total  trade.  We  used 
to  be  too  dependent  on  one  market — the  American." 

His  ruddy  face  and  forceful  language  show  that  he  has 
been  through  the  game  of  steel-making  pretty  much  from 
the  bottom — A?dth  some  of  the  shortcomings  as  well  as  the 
strength  of  that  experience,  as  when  he  added  that  "Well, 
no,  we'll  never  be  dry  here  because,  you  see,  the  workers 
near  the  furnaces  simply  can't  get  through  their  eight-hour 
turns,  and  shouldn't  be  expected  to,  without  the  extra 
stimulus  and  strength  that  comes  from  a  couple  of  pints 
of  beer." 

That  idea  of  alcohol  as  a  food  used  to  prevail  at  home; 
it  appears  to  be  very  general  here. 

"The  continuation  schools  have  been  authorized  by  Par- 
liament, but  every  district  has  the  Hberty  of  voting  the 
'appointed  day'  which  puts  them  into  local  operation. 
My  group  is  to  help  the  school  authorities  work  out  the 
local  time  and  method  by  which  the  pupils  are  to  get  their 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OP  SOUTH  WALES      53 

280  and  320  hours  a  year  of  schooling  along  with  their 
work.  It  will  probably  take  a  long  time  before  the  addi- 
tional space  can  be  provided.  Meanwhile,  every  employer 
having  a  certain  number  of  boys  of  thirteen,  or  mostly 
fourteen,  has  to  have  a  welfare  man  to  provide  them  with 
sports,  gyms,  etc.  No,  we're  not  much  in  favor  of  classes 
in  the  works  for  anybody.  You  see,  we  must  keep  'em  all- 
round  men — and  no,  there  isn't  a  great  deal  of  chance  for 
the  workers  to  get  into  the  management. 

"No,  I  don't  think  the  Sociahsm  of  the  worker  chaps  is 
very  deep,  but  the  big  pound-a-day  wages  of  the  munitions 
workers  and  the  large  profits  of  the  employers  durin'  the 
war  has  got  'em  on  edge  and  nobody  is  workin'  hard  now. 
'Wy  should  we  stand  up  'ere  and  sweat  oiu*  guts  out  be- 
fore this  bloody  furnace  for  the  mawster  ter  myke  'is  pile !  * 
That's  the  way  they  put  it.  And  the  miners  that  used  to 
work  twelve  hours  a  day  and  lived  like  rats  in  a  drain — 
well,  they're  trying  to  even  up  now  by  lying  down  on  the 
job.  Even  at  that,  the  majority  is  not  for  putting  the  mines 
over  to  the  government,  even  though  the  leaders  are.  .  .  . 
But  many  of  these  things  you'll  be  finding  better  in  Eng- 
land, because  most  of  our  mines  and  steel  plants  here  are 
pretty  old-fashioned  and  backward." 

"Never,  never  did  we  work  all  the  twelve  hours,"  a  group 
of  laborers  assured  me  most  strenuously  a  couple  of  hours 
later  near  the  "jinnies"  or  regenerators — our  "checker- 
chambers" — in  a  2,000-man  steel  and  tin-plate  plant  back 
in  Llanelly  where  I  walked  boldly  into  the  plant.  "Of 
course  we  'ad  the  twelve-hour  shift — from  six  till  six.  But, 
of  course,  we  'ad  a  'arf-hour  awf  fer  breakfast  and  then  an 
hour  and  a  'arf  fer  dinner — that  mykes  10^  hours  work. 
.  .  .    But  that's  a  long  time  ago." 

Their  disgust  at  the  thought  of  twelve  full  hours  of  work 
daily  was  wonderful  to  behold — although  they  did  seem  to 
think  extra  hoxirs  after  Satm-day  noon  or  on  Sunday  with 


54  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

double  pay  were  one  of  the  advantages  of  their  job  as  com- 
pared with  that  of  the  fourth  hand  or  helper  on  the  furnaces. 
That  position  is  supposed  to  represent  a  promotion,  but 
its  regular  hours  with  little  chance  at  extra  pay,  they  say, 
make  some  of  them  hesitate  to  accept  it.  This  gang  comes 
on  duty  at  seven,  takes  a  half -hour  for  breakfast  about  8.30 
and  an  hour  for  dinner  at  one  and  quits  at  5.30  so  as  to 
get  in  forty-seven  hours  with  a  Saturday  "'arf  'oliday." 
With  a  fair  amount  of  extra  hours  they  manage  to  get  their 
six  or,  with  better  luck,  seven  pounds  per  week. 

"In  this  coontry  the  members  do  run  our  unions,  they 
do,"  one  of  the  older  men  explains.  "We  elect  our  rep- 
resentatives of  every  'local'  to  sit  with  the  officers  whilst 
they  bargain  with  the  owners,  and  these  can  veto  the  action 
of  the  officers  when  they  know  we  won't  stawnd  fer  some- 
thin'.  .  .  .  Aye,  mon,  uf  a  mon  won't  join  the  union 
after  'is  fust  pay,  we  chucks  'im  oot  and  awf  the  job  quick- 
like. An  no  mon'll  tike  the  phce  of  a  striker  in  another 
department.  We  do  awll  stawnd  together,  we  do,  and  we 
'as  no  'black-legs'  (scabs)  amongst  oos!" 

They  were  sure  enough  a  happy-go-lucky  lot.  They 
seemed  to  think  they  could  go  much  farther  before  they 
would  discourage  the  industrial  goose  from  laying  her 
golden  eggs — and  before  they  would  be  overpaid  for  work 
in  the  hot  "checkers."  There  "soomtimes  oor  clothes 
do  catch  on  fir're —  Oh,  aye!  Awnd  sometimes  in  the 
soakin'  pits  we  'as  ter  fine  up,  joomp  in,  give  six  strokes 
with  the  sledge  and  joomp  'oot,  quick-like,  w'ilst  another 
joomps  in  ter  do  the  sime!" 

Some  of  those  I  saw  working  about  the  hot  ingots  with 
the  end  of  their  sweat  towels  in  their  mouths  were  as  hot 
as  any  men  I've  ever  seen. 

In  the  hot-mills  where  the  sheet  bar  is  rolled  into  the 
sheets,  all  seemed  unhappy  at  the  thought  that  laborers 
with  the  help  of  extra  time  could  make  more  than  they — 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES      55 

also  very  hopeful  that  the  conference  would  get  theu*  de- 
mand for  a  six-hour  turn,  three  additional  helpers  paid 
by  the  company  and  fifty  per  cent  increase  per  hour! 

"We  used  to  slave  'ere  on  this  job,"  said  an  expert  "dou- 
bler"  who,  besides  doubUng  the  hot  sheets  together,  also 
kept  the  fires  and  charged  the  furnace,  "but  now  we're 
going  to  take  it  easy — and  get  more  money.    See?'* 

The  troop  of  small  boys  and  girls  of  thirteen,  fourteen, 
and  fifteen  years,  who  put  the  small  sheets  through  the 
cold  rolls — called  "greasers"  and  certainly  looking  the  part 
— were  as  frisky  and  mischievous  as  could  be  imagined, 
but  made  a  depressing  sight  none  the  less. 

It  is  amazing  to  think  of  spending  from  noon  till  after 
eight  o'clock  thus  talking  with  the  workers  without  a  word 
from  the  authorities.  But  from  all  reports  these  would, 
according  to  the  current  plant  etiquette  here,  only  put  a 
question  about  me  to  a  foreman.  This  foreman  would 
himself  perhaps  be  a  member  of  a  union  and  would  think 
I  was  a  friend  of  one  of  his  pals  and  so  probably  tell  the 
authority  to  mind  his  own  business.  Meanwhile  I  stood 
ready  to  ask  for  the  gaffer,  or  foreman,  and  then  for  a  job, 
though  as  long  as  I  could  get  so  close  to  the  workers  with- 
out it,  it  did  not  seem  necessary  to  try  too  hard.  In  Amer- 
ica the  job  was  indispensable  to  the  desired  closeness  to  the 
workers. 

"Oh,  we've  got  the  owners  so  scared  here  they  don't 
trouble  us,  and  it's  just  our  good  consciences  thot  mykes  us 
work  at  all,  at  all,"  said  one.  It  looks  as  though  he  spoke 
the  truth.  It's  a  queer  situation.  The  most  hopeful  thing 
about  it  is  that  the  boys  seem  to  take  it  all  as  rather  a 
good  joke.    And  now  the  evening  paper  adds  its  word: 

"Not  fit  for  pigs  to  five  in — Llanelly  District  houses. 
The  local  doctor  prescribes  tents  in  preference  to  putting 
eight  persons  in  two  small  rooms  as  he  has  found  them  in 
certain  shacks  long  ago  ordered  destroyed.    In  the  absence 


56  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

of  the  tents  he  has  asked  places  for  the  residents  in  the 
workhouse." 

"Women  police  wanted  for  Llanelly  .  .  .  Lady  R 

and  the  local  committee  report  that  our  streets  are  no 
longer  fit  for  respectable  women  and  girls  to  walk  about," 
etc.,  etc. 

It's  worth  calling  a  day ! 

Swansea, 
Tuesday,  July  13. 

All  day  I've  been  asking  for  work  in  this  mill  and  that, 
getting  the  usual  "Full  up!"  and  then  forgetting  about  it 
a  moment  later  when  the  various  workers  have,  as  usual, 
started  talking  about  their  relatives  in  America  and  then, 
as  usual,  about  their  own  jobs  here. 

"We'  awve  to  be  ter  get  'em,  yer  see,"  chorussed  three 
bright  lads  in  a  l^ig  plant  more  like  a  well-run  American 
establishment  than  any  yet  seen,  though  many  of  its  colos- 
sal rolls  and  cranes  are  German  made.  The  boys  were  de- 
lighted to  stop  their  work  of  cleaning  out  the  "jinnies" 
when  I  asked  them  why,  with  all  their  advantages  of  se- 
curity from  the  foreman's  firing,  their  short  hoiu*s  and  high 
wages,  health  and  unemployment  insurance,  etc.,  they 
still  cared  to  call  themselves  Sinn  Feiners  and  Bolshevists. 
"We  'aivve  ter  be  ter  get  'em!"  They  could  certainly  roll 
off  the  regulation  phrases  about  the  "capitalist  class,"  the 
"capitalist-kept  press,"  etc.,  etc.,  and  were  extremely  proud 
that  they  and  their  leaders  had,  by  their  strong-arm  mea- 
sures got  "more  wages  and  more  power  than  the  steel  work- 
ers in  any  other  part  of  the  islands,  bar  none."  "Llide 
George"  is  a  "twister"  who  doesn't  keep  his  promises, 
though  still  popular  with  the  "chapel  folk"  (church  peo- 
ple) who  rule  Wales.  J.  H.  Thomas  is  no  longer  extreme 
enough  to  suit  his  railway  union's  constituency.  The  real 
power  they  respect  most  is  the  Triple  Alliance  of  Miners, 
Railway,  and  Transport  Workers.    The  King  is  "  'armless 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES     57 

enough,  but  look  at  the  money  'e  spends  on  all  the  princes 
and  the  princesses!    Wot  good  does  'e  do,  hye?" 

"We  must  stop  all  chawnce  fer  private  profit  and  let  the 
people  'ave  the  profit.  Look  w'at  we'll  sive  by  cuttin'  out 
all  the  middlemen,  with  the  government  runnin'  all  the 
country's  business,  in  a  sense  o'  speakin'." 

But  another  worker,  ambling  up,  asked  if  they  were  sure 
there'd  be  a  profit  to  divide  when  the  government  took  it 
over.  Altogether  he  showed  that  they  themselves  were 
not  so  sure  of  their  own  arguments  as  they  let  on  to  be. 
They  all  seemed,  also,  ready  to  admit  that  the  present 
situation  of  the  industrial  owner  or  manager  is,  at  least  in 
South  Wales,  well-nigh  impossible. 

/'Yes,  our  young  boss  comes  along  about  once  a  day  to 
see  how  the  job  is  comin'.  But  if  'e  comes  oftener,  we  makes 
it  uncomfortable  fer  'im.  If  there's  a  bit  too  much  bossin' 
we  'down  tools'  on  'im.  .  .  .  This  eyen't  so  bad;  we  gets 
195  per  cent  war  bonus  on  our  pre-war  sixpence  ha'penny 
the  hour — that's  about  one  and  ninepence,  and  with  all  the 
'blows'  (rests)  we  tykes  w'en  no  boss  is  around,  we  don't 
work  so  much  as  'arf  our  eight  hours." 

"That's  it,  education!"  all  chorussed  again  when  I  hap- 
pened to  mention  it  as  giving  the  worker  a  chance  for  ris- 
ing. Besides  the  night  schools  the  Independent  Labor 
Party  furnishes  classes  to  workers  in  various  subjects  in 
local  groups  and  the  Ruskin  Labor  College  also  offers 
classes  for  the  more  ambitious,  with  still  others  maintained 
by  the  Workers'  Educational  Alliance.  But  whether  these 
are  mainly  for  propaganda  rather  than  education,  or 
whether  the  class  lines  are  too  set  to  be  vaulted  even  by 
the  educated,  in  any  event  they  apparently  feel  strongly 
that  these  facilities  offer  very  little  chance  of  carrying  a 
man  up  into  the  group  which  they  believe  has  in  its  control 
the  industry,  the  government,  and  everything  else  worth 
owning. 


58  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Up  on  the  open-hearth  floor  or  "smelting  stage"  the 
hands  or  helpers  laughed  when  I  spoke  of  the  young  rad- 
icals I  had  talked  with  in  the  checkers  below.  Still  they, 
too,  agreed  that  the  ''sample  passer,"  or  head  melter,  as 
we  call  him,  in  charge  of  the  stage,  had  to  go  easy  with  his 
orders  or  they  ''downed  tools"  on  him  at  once.  But  they 
were  intent  on  their  job  and  could  evidently  be  pretty  well 
trusted  to  get  out  their  tonnage  for  their  pay — ^much  the 
same  as  the  gas  men  handling  the  gas  producers  across  the 
way. 

It  is  impossible  to  overstate  their  disgust  at  hearing  of 
the  men  in  America  who  still  work  the  ten  and  fourteen 
hour  turns  on  the  furnaces.  None  here  in  this  part  of  the 
country  seem  ever  to  have  done  it. 

The  price  of  clothes — ^about  twice  in  America  what  it  is 
here,  of  board  and  room  almost  ditto,  the  comparative 
chances  to  become  an  official,  the  hours,  the  kind  of  edu- 
cation— these  seem  to  be  the  things  of  chief  concern.  The 
international  range  of  their  interests  is  most  surprising — 
the  result  of  the  same  kind  of  letters  as  the  one  shown  by 
the  red-headed  Irishman  back  there  in  the  restaurant  in 
Woolwich.  All  seem  to  have  brothers  or  cousins  writing 
back — or  visiting  back — from  America,  Canada,  Aus- 
traUa,  New  Zealand,  Tasmania,  South  Africa,  etc.,  etc. 
(India,  I  judge,  gets  people  more  from  the  educated  and 
official  group.)  The  influence  of  these  facts  about  clothes, 
jobs,  laundry,  as  thus  given,  appears  to  me  hard  to  over- 
estimate largely  because  of  the  unbounded  confidence 
placed  in  their  source.  This  is  sufficient  to  cause  easy  dis- 
counting of  most  of  the  published  or  other  more  general 
testimony  to  the  contrary.  This  is  especially  the  case  in  a 
country  where  the  situation  favors  blaming  the  "capital- 
ist press"  for  any  unwelcome  news  or  opinion  of  whatever 
sort.  Thus  our  personal  relations  and  the  confidence  we 
have  in  those  around  us  come  to  play  a  vital  part  as  a  sort 


BY  THE  SMELTERS  OF  SOUTH  WALES      59 

of  sieve  or  screen  to  determine  what  particular  set  of  facts, 
opinions,  and  experiences  out  of  all  those  around  us  really 
get  through  to  us  and  so  determine  our  whole  attitude  to- 
ward everything  else  imaginable. 

''Oh,  aye!  I'm  sorry  I  didn't  go  with  th'  intention  av 
remainin'  in  America,"  said  one  big  helper.  "Me  brothers 
do  be  proprietors  at  a  big  worrks  there  noo." 

"To  Africa  I'm  goin'  next  winter,"  said  a  young  man 
who  had  been  an  apprentice  in  electricity  for  four  years 
and  was  now  helping  to  get  into  shape  the  conveying  ma- 
chinery for  the  two  new  huge  blast-furnaces.  He  thought 
the  manager  had  a  pretty  hard  time  trying  to  get  on  with 
the  fourteen  unions  engaged  in  getting  the  place  ready. 
Fourteen  unions  in  South  Wales !    I  pity  the  poor  "super"  ! 

Yes,  whether  we  recognize  it  or  not,  the  labor  problem 
is  growing  more  and  more  international.  The  queer  thing 
is  that  with  all  these  international  friends  and  relatives 
and  their  market  quotations  on  the  going  rate  of  muscle 
and  sweat  and  skill,  so  many  of  the  workers  have  been  on 
the  same  job  here  for  decades  and  decades  and  speak  a 
language  so  hard  to  understand.  When  I  asked  one  helper 
to-day  what  an  old  smelter  was  trying  to  tell  me,  saying  I 
couldn't  understand  him,  the  answer  was  disconcerting: 

"Well,  'e  do  sye  as  'ow  'e  doon't  oonderstand  ye." 

A  few  minutes  ago  I  was  glad  to  help  put  the  trawler 
man — his  name  is  Bolton — on  board  his  trawler,  ready  to 
set  off  for  a  two  weeks'  trip  to-morrow.  He  is  fairly  sober, 
though  he  says  he's  eaten  nothing  in  five  days  and  owes  the 
proprietor  of  the  pub  five  "quid"  for  the  beer  and  whiskey 
he's  been  drinking  in  place  of  food. 

"And  I'U  pay  him,  too,  when  I  get  back  if  I  have  to  sell 
my  shirt.  Lots  o'  these  Welshmen  won't.  I've  not  got 
many  principles,  but  I've  got  that  one  at  least. 

"Well,  I've  had  a  bad  education,"  he  said  when  I  tried 
to  solve  the  mystery  of  his  remarkable  fund  of  information. 


60  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

his  air  of  culture,  and  his  drunkenness.  "As  a  youngster  I 
was  taught  to  be  a  yes-sir,  no-sir  kid — with  no  mind  of  my 
own.  Then  I  went  off  to  a  'pubhc'  school.  After  that  I 
went,  according  to  proper  etiquette,  into  'chambers.' 
There  I  was  suddenly  my  own  boss  with  my  own  key  and 
everything,  and  started  to  Uve  fast  and  raise  cain.  .  .  . 
Now  I  can't  stick  at  anything — I  get  fed  up,  d'  ye  see  ?  I 
got  to  try  something  else — I  get  fed  up  too  quick,  that's 
the  trouble.  Now,  my  brothers,  they're  good  boys  and 
they  stay  in  the  office  till  4.30  every  day  of  their  lives. 
I'd  stay  the  first  day  and  then  I'd  leave  at  four  and 
the  next  day  at  3.30,  see?  ...  Go  to  the  movies?  No, 
ye  see,  unless  I  got  more  beer  in  me  than  I  have  now  they 
bore  me.  If  I'm  sober  I  can't  cry  or  get  anything  out 
of  them,  so  what's  the  use  of  going?  No,  I'm  no  good  and 
I  know  it.  Well,  here  we  are — good-by  and  good  luck  to 
you!  And  to-morrow  when  they'll  give  me  not  a  single 
drop  of  whiskey  or  even  beer,  I'll  go  through  the  torments  of 
the  damned !    Ta-ta." 

I'd  certainly  like  to  see  him  again.    He's  a  wreck  worth 
salvaging. 


CHAPTER  III 

"BACK  TO  THE  MINES"  AND  THE  "BOLSHIES"! 

A  Rhondda  Valley  Coal  Town, 
S.  Wales, 
July  15th. 

For  the  last  few  hours  I've  been  feeling  myself  some 
miles  farther  beyond  "the  jumping-off  place"  than  ever  in 
my  life  before — even  farther  than  one  homesick  day  when 
we  got  aboard  the  dirty  Uttle  Chilean  steamer  and  with  our 
supply  of  chicken  and  beef  crowing  and  bellowing  forlorn- 
ly, headed  down  from  Panama  to  Callao  and  Lima,  Peru. 

A  job  here  was  certainly  far  enough  away  from  all  prob- 
abilities yesterday  when  I  left  Swansea.  Following  a  chance 
suggestion  it  looked  worth  while  to  come  up  from  Cardiff 
and  visit  a  school  of  mines  in  order  to  ask  some  questions 
about  the  district's  chief  industry,  coal.  Within  a  half- 
hour  it  was  arranged  that  one  of  the  professors  there  would 
j&nd  me  a  job  in  a  big  mine  whose  officials  are  friends  of  his. 
Before  sunset  one  of  these  told  his  superintendent  that  I 
was  a  '^ friend  of  a  friend"  of  his  who  needed  a  job  but  was 
also  interested  in  studying  a  typical  Welsh  mine  before  re- 
turning to  America  for  further  study. 

So  I'm  all  set  for  appearing  at  the  pit-head  to-morrow 
morning  at  6.30.  Also  as  lonesome  and  far-away-some  as 
could  be  conceived,  surrounded  —  almost  overwhelmed  — 
by  these  great  towering  mountains,  these  foreign-speaking 
Welsh,  and  these  forlornly  bleating  sheep  that  nose  for 
morsels  of  food  in  the  ash  cans  and  garbage  boxes  of  the 
little  coal  town's  main  street  which  mounts  rapidly  up  to  the 
head  of  the  valley  and  the  "  tip  "  or  tipple  of  the  big  colliery. 

61 


62  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

It  must  be  this  strangeness  of  sights  and  sounds  which 
gives  this  far-away  feehng,  for  strangely  enough  the  other 
"feel"  which  exists  right  along  with  it  is  the  amazing 
friendliness  of  the  people  here.  I  can't  imagine  anything 
to  exceed  the  hearty  neighborhness  and  hospitaUty  of  the 
master  mechanic  and  of  the  wife  he  brought  back  after  his 
several  years  in  America,  to  the  total  stranger  introduced 
to  them  by  the  superintendent — ^he  had  told  me  it  would  be 
much  harder  to  find  me  lodgings  than  work. 

The  mechanic  was  plainly  sorry  that  the  wife  was  too 
hard  worked  to  be  wiUing  to  take  on  a  new  family  member 
for  the  length  of  my  stay,  but  he  was  quite  too  much  the 
man  of  character  to  insist.  America  had  treated  him  well 
— ^with  his  best  job  in  the  Pullman  works  just  before  the 
World's  Fair — "  'ard  work  it  been,  sir — 'arder  than  men 
work  over  'ere,  a  lot — ^but  with  good  pay  awnd  good 
chawnces."  To  recover  from  an  attack  of  fever  he  had 
come  back  to  the  home  valley  and  town  to  find  his  father 
anxious  to  turn  over  to  him  his  job  as  head  blacksmith  of 
the  mine — ^and  so  had  stayed  ever  since.  Evidently  the 
mother  had  fallen  into  the  hard-working  ways  which  ap- 
pear to  be  the  lot  of  all  the  women  of  the  town.  The  boss, 
as  she  called  him,  was  glad  when  she  announced  that  it 
would  be  quite  possible  to  find  me  a  place  beneath  the  roof 
of  their  tidy  company  house  for  the  night  at  least. 

"Aye,  he  shall  sleep  with  the  boss!"  she  exclaimed  with 
great  definiteness  and  satisfaction  when  she  had  thought  it 
all  through.  "Oh,  aye,  he  shall  sleep  with  the  boss — and  I 
shall  sleep  with  Salhe — that's  my  oldest  daughter." 

"Aye,  now  that  will  be  fine!"  assented  the  husband. 

"Ye  can  take  a  swill  now,  and  then  we'U  have  a  sip  o* 
tea  before  we  go  out  to  look  up  a  place  for  ye.  'Tis  sorry  I 
am  that  we  cawn't  'ave  ye  'ere  regular.  But  ye  see  she 
be'n't  as  strong  as  she  were,"  he  added  to  me  as  the  wife 
went  up  to  make  all  ready. 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  63 

I  judged  finally  what  the  "swill"  referred  to  in  the  way 
of  ablutions  in  the  tin  basin  and  managed  to  take  clean  hands 
as  well  as  hungry  Ups  to  the  table  for  the  bread  and  butter 
and  jam  and  tea.  These  seemed  to  have  changed  only  in 
price  from  the  days  of  twenty  years  ago. 

Certainly  no  old  friend  could  have  given  me  a  better 
recommendation  than  he  when  we  started  down  the  street 
into  the  bottom  of  the  valley.  But  it  was  slow  work  in 
the  crowded  town,  imtil  he  finally  turned  the  job  over  to 
one  of  his  assistants.  I  understand  "the  boss"  has  under 
him  sixty  men  in  the  blacksmith  shop  and  the  other  places 
for  keeping  up  the  mine  equipment.  On  all  sides  the  men 
and  women  of  the  town  spoke  to  him  with  the  greatest  re- 
spect and  good-will  though  with  none  too  much  famiharity. 

"Tidy  people  they  are.  Ye'll  fawncy  that  place!"  they 
both  exclaimed  this  morning  when  word  came  that  a  place 
had  been  found  with  the  "night-overman"  of  a  near-by 
pit.  The  night  with  them  and  the  good  breakfast  in  the 
kitchen  certainly  proved  the  simphcity  and  cleanliness  of 
their  own  housekeeping  and  made  me  sorry  not  to  be  stay- 
ing longer. 

"  'Twill  insult  us  if  ye  say  another  word  in  regards  to 
thot !"  they  chorussed  when  I  wanted  to  pay  something  for 
their  solid  hospitaUty.  "We  do  too  much  fawncy  sharing 
with  any  one  from  America,  we  do,  to  take  money  from 
'em.    And  ye  must  roon  up  often  to  see  us,  too." 

Already  I  have  found  a  great  many  of  the  townspeople 
have  relatives  or  close  friends  in  America  and  seem  to  know 
the  country's  geography  surprisingly  well.  I  only  hope 
they  are  properly  informed  when  they  take  such  care  to 
pass  onto  me  the  tale  of  the  surpassing  success  which  has 
attended  the  careers  of  these  overseas  members  of  the  fam- 
ily. All  are  interested  in  my  having  had  a  grandfather  who 
emigrated  to  the  States  from  the  very  next  coimty  to  this 
one.    All  that  being  true,  it  is  amazing  to  notice  the  extent 


64  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

to  which  ordinary  conversation  is  carried  on  in  Welsh — 
among  the  children  as  well  as  the  grown-ups.  It  is  easy  to 
see,  too,  from  the  glances  and  the  introductions,  that  visit- 
ing strangers  are  rare  indeed  in  the  town  and  that  any  one 
who  is  not  able  to  talk  the  local  language  is  looked  upon  as 
a  foreigner  whether  from  America,  England,  or  elsewhere. 

I  hope  that  no  danger  bodes  even  though  the  place  is  said 
to  be  the  very  hottest  centre  of  the  Bolshevistic  unrest 
which  affects  the  whole  South  Wales  district  and  which  in 
turn  is  said  to  be  the  most  disturbed  of  all  Great  Britain 
outside  Scotland's  Clyde  district.  It  is  a  delight  to  find 
that  this  is  the  very  town,  and  I  am  to  work  in  the  very 
pit,  in  which  the  men  were  reported  in  the  London  paper 
of  a  few  days  ago  to  have  walked  out  against  orders  and, 
in  their  black  faces  and  working  clothes,  to  have  marched 
one  thousand  strong  to  the  funeral  of  a  comrade.  It  would 
look  as  though  a  sojoiu'n  in  their  midst  ought  to  be  inter- 
esting quite  apart  from  the  ''insight  into  Welsh  mining 
methods"  referred  to  so  frequently  by  the  boss  in  his  vari- 
ous introductions.  In  actuaUty,  of  course,  the  men  them- 
selves and  their  ways  mental  and  spiritual  constitute  ex- 
actly the  ''methods"  I  am  after. 

The  house  where  I'm  settled  at  this  moment  looks  clean, 
with  a  hard-working  woman  of  less  than  thirty-five  engaged 
in  the  town's  chief  pastime  of  chasing  dirt  from  off  the 
door  stones  and  "pawsages"  just  inside,  as  also  from  the 
floor  of  the  kitchen  which  serves  as  pantry,  dining-room, 
and  bathroom  for  the  town's  bread-winners.  All  the  houses 
are  of  brick  or  stone,  placed  right  on  the  street,  and  of  the 
same  plan  and  pattern  as  almost  all  the  others  of  the  town, 
with  which,  indeed,  they  are  all  connected  under  the  line 
of  roofs  unbroken  except  at  the  street  intersections.  With 
their  four  or  six  rooms,  the  water  faucet  or  "tap"  inside 
the  kitchen,  and  with  the  toilet  plumbing  under  the  same 
roof  or  across  the  alley,  it  is  better  housing  than  I  saw  in 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  65 

many  American  mine  towns.  The  rent  seems  to  run  from 
fom-  to  six  and  seven  dollars,  including  water  and  almost  a 
ton  of  coal  a  month. 

In  spite  of  the  attempt  at  cleanliness  which  is  so  evident, 
I  find  that  I  must  add  to  the  multitudinous  bites  of  the  fleas 
of  Swansea — ^for  purpHDses  of  simplicity  I  find  it  easier  to 
ascertain  their  total  number  by  multiplying  at  the  rate  of 
twenty  per  leg  or  arm! — the  more  serious  flaming  calling- 
cards  of  the  beast  that  uses  the  reddest  of  blood-red  ink 
to  sign  his  name. 

Perhaps  it  is  these  cards  which  are  responsible  for  my 
present  conviction  that  this  particular  way  of  getting  an 
insight  into  the  labor  problem  has  its  moments  of  demoral- 
izing discomfort  and  forlornness.  Anyway,  I'll  walk  out 
for  another  view  of  the  splendid  mountains  and  for  another 
enjoyment  of  the  pleasantly  rushing  and  murmuring  stream 
by  the  side  of  the  main  street,  and  hope  to  have  plenty  of 
active  and  interesting  things — and  if  possible  plenty  of 
real,  live  Bolshevists — to  cheer  me  up  to-morrow  down  in 
the  deep,  dark  entries  ''inside." 

A  Rhondda  Coal  Town 
July  16. 

First  the  booming  whistle  from  the  pit-head.  Then  the 
bang-bang  on  the  front  door  of  every  house  in  the  town  by 
the  official  "knocker-up."  Then  the  sound  of  the  wooden 
and  iron  shod  feet  of  hurrying  men.  All  this  started  the 
day  at  5.30  and  got  me  down  to  the  eggs  and  the  strong 
bacon  which  the  landlady  had  bought  on  my  directions — 
she  would  not  board  me  for  a  fixed  sum  with  prices  so  un- 
steady. Shortly  after,  I  started  off  with  some  sandwiches 
in  a  paper  and  some  water  in  a  whiskey  bottle  for  the 
day's  work. 

Health  insurance,  etc.,  had  been  signed  for  the  day  be- 
fore— I  wish  they  would  frame  the  question  dijfferently 
from  "To  what  person  should  word  be  sent  in  case  of  ac- 


66  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

cident?"  So  my  safety  lamp  and  number  came  without 
trouble,  though  it  was  evident  that  the  stranger  was  attract- 
ing a  surprising  lot  of  attention.  I  was  certainly  not  expert 
enough  to  follow  the  lead  of  all  the  others  who  immediately 
took  their  lamp  and,  after  revolving  it  in  a  way  to  test  the 
lock,  blew  upon  it  above  the  glass  and  watched  to  see  if 
by  any  chance  the  flame  would  show  it.  In  that  case,  I 
presmne,  they  would  return  it.  At  the  top  of  the  shaft 
all  wicks  and  lamps  got  a  further  inspection  by  a  pre- 
sumable expert.  All  this  care  gave  an  unpleasant  feeUng 
of  unmistakable  gassiness  in  the  pit  below.  No  one  gave 
the  sUghtest  sign  of  having  read  the  night  before  of  the 
falling  of  a  cage  in  a  mine  just  a  few  miles  away,  with  the 
serious  injuring  of  twenty  men.  When  our  turn  came  to 
be  counted  into  the  hoist  by  the  "banksman"  I  had  to  shut 
my  eyes  to  keep  out  the  dirt  as  the  engineer  gave  us  a  quick 
plunge  down  the  thousand  feet  to  the  "bottom." 

It  was  a  pretty  dark  place  in  spite  of  the  few  electric 
lights — very  different  from  the  whitewashed  and  bril- 
liantly illuminated  "central  station"  of  the  second  mine  of 
last  year,  back  in  Pennsylvania.  A  few  inquiries  got  me 
to  some  sort  of  boss  who  called  to  another  to  take  me  down 
to  "Evans,  in  18,"  so  we 'started  past  the  crowds  of  boys 
and  men  who  seemed  to  be  waiting  for  "pit  eyes"  before 
starting  off  toward  their  locations.  Our  oil-flame  lamps 
gave  little  enough  light,  though  mostly  we  walked  in  groups 
with  every  one's  lamp  carried  near  the  ground.  In  addi- 
tion to  the  timbers  which  had  to  be  watched  for  bumps, 
there  were  also,  every  few  yards,  the  iron  hangers  for  carry- 
ing the  steel  "ropes"  or  cables  by  which  the  cars  of  coal 
are  brought  to  the  bottom  for  sending  up  on  the  hoist.  The 
coal  seam  has  been  so  disturbed  here  that  the  same  seam 
is  to  be  found  at  a  variety  of  depths.  This  means  that — 
as  I  found  to  my  surprise  and  my  sorrow — ^we  were  climb- 
ing first  up  hill  then  down  as  we  walked  along  the  main 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  67 

headings  to  our  destination.  These  ups  and  downs  would 
have  made  it  very  risky  for  men  to  ride  to  their  districts 
in  the  "man-trip,"  or  train,  as  we  did  in  one  of  the  Pennsyl- 
vania mines.  Finally  after  we  had  walked  close  to  two 
miles  up  and  down,  I  was  given,  after  another  disconcert- 
ingly careful  inspection  of  our  lamps,  into  the  hands  of 
Evans,  the  repair  man.  With  another  laborer  we  started 
off  through  some  very  tmnble-down  portions  of  the  "return 
air  passage"  for  the  fixing  of  a  "gob"  or  heap  of  slate  and 
"muck"  so  held  in  place  by  our  wall  of  stone  as  to  carry 
some  of  the  weight  of  the  roof  when  the  timbers  should 
give  out. 

We  had  moved  only  a  few  of  the  rails  and  ties  there  after 
we  had  sat  down  to  "take  a  blow"  to  rest  from  the  long 
and  I  must  say  unusually  tiring,  walk,  before  a  fireman 
(fire  boss  in  America)  came  hurriedly  to  say  that  a  fall 
had  just  occiu-ed  in  a  near-by  heading.  It  was  evidently 
up  to  us  to  fix  it  up  before  the  expected  fall  of  further  parts 
of  the  roof  occurred  and  so  prevent  coal  from  being  taken 
out  from  "by  there,"  as  the  Welsh  put  it.  So  with  each 
of  us  carrying  his  proper  share  of  the  picks  [and  shovels, 
sledges  and  bars,  we  made  our  way — ^with  many  bumps 
for  the  least  experienced — through  some  very  dreary  pas- 
sages to  the  place  where  we  tried  to  keep  one  eye  on  the 
work  of  our  shovels  in  throwing  the  fallen  slate  away  and 
another  on  a  nasty-looking  piece  of  "top,"  as  the  repairer 
called  it. 

"Stawnd  you,  quick,  by  there,  not  by  'ere!"  Evans 
said  when  he  had  looked  it  all  over  carefully  and  expertly. 
"By  'ere,  if  it  fall,  it  'ave  to  bounce  by  there." 

With  the  same  sort  of  skill  he  chose  the  exact  place  where 
he  should  stand  for  striking  a  half-fallen  rock  with  his 
heavy  iron  bar  until  finally  it  came  thimdering  down — 
after  he  had  counselled  the  other  two  of  us  to  stand  well 
back  under  the  timbers.    With  similar  "know-how,"  too, 


68  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

he  showed  how  to  take  note  of  the  grain  of  the  great  rock 
so  as  to  make  the  strokes  of  our  sledges  count  for  breaking 
it  into  pieces  small  enough  to  be  pushed  and  carried  to  one 
side.  When  the  big  and  handsome  draft-horse  came  along 
and  got  past  without  let  or  danger  with  its  tram  of  coal — 
these  Welshman  call  it  ''dram" — ^we  shouldered  our  tools 
again  and  went  back  with  the  feeUng  that  the  successful 
maintenance  of  way  and  so  the  moving  of  coal  pretty  much 
depended  upon  us,  in  spite  of  our  having  the  humblest  job 
in  the  mine  outside  of  the  work  given  to  boys. 

I  wish  I  could  paint  the  picture  presented  an  hour  or  so 
later  when  Powell,  the  under-manager  or  under-superin- 
tendent,  came  along  to  look  us  and  our  work  over  and  the 
conversation  got  quickly  around  to  the  recent  fimeral  dem- 
onstration. All  the  light,  of  course,  came  from  our  safety- 
lamps  suspended  by  their  hooked  handles  from  the  edges 
of  the  upturned  or  "tumbled"  "dram,"  with  the  darkness 
making  a  heavy  frame  around  the  gray  figures  and  the 
coal-covered,  sweaty  faces  of  the  four  of  us.  Evans  was 
on  his  knees — the  result  of  old  habits  favored  by  the  thin 
seams  of  coal  he  had  met  and  mastered  in  his  forty-three 
years  of  work  in  this  one  pit !  His  face  showed  the  lines 
of  a  lot  of  hving  and  working  and  also  of  a  good  deal  of 
thinking.  Powell,  Sanders,  Evans's  buddy,  and  I  sat  or 
stood  about,  with  the  shadows  of  our  heads  sprawling  over 
the  rough  rock  of  the  low  "top,"  which  almost  touched  us. 

"To  'elp  the  other  fellow  a  great  mon  the  dead  chap 
was.  'Twas  for  thot  we  fawncied  goin'  to  'is  funeral," 
argued  Evans.  "Pubhc-spirited  'e  was,  d'ye  see?  Besides 
a  good  mon  on  our  deputations  to  the  management." 

"Well,  poor  respect  to  such  a  man,  I  call  it,  to  go  to  his 
funeral  without  so  much  as  washing  your  face!"  answered 
Powell.  "And  any  of  you  who  were  his  friends  could  have 
got  permission  to  get  ofif  in  time  for  a  swill  before  you  saw 
him  buried  if  you  had  asked  for  it,  you  know." 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  69 

"Ah,  but  two  carriages  they  said  was  all  to  be  furnished 
and  what  chawnce  would  I  'ave  'o  bein'  in  'em?  No,  when 
ye  refused  us  to  come  out  at  the  regular  time  all  of  us  'ad 
to  support  each  other's  dirty  faces  in  the  payin'  of  oor  re- 
spect." 

"Well,  then,  you  should  have  supported  each  other  in 
coming  home  again  with  proper  decorum  instead  of  singing 
and  skylarking  disgracefully  as  you  did.  A  thousand  men  of 
you!    For  shame!" 

"To  play  the  mon — that's  me  motto  and  as  the  good 
Book  says,  'Do  unto  others'  and  'Bear  ye  one  another's 
burdens.'  Thot's  what  all  of  us  must  do,  dead  or  alive," 
the  old  man  fairly  shouted  when  the  dispute  grew  hotter. 
"And  all  thot's  the  last  thing  the  company  do  be  a  thinkin' 
'av  these  days,  I  tell  'oo,  Mr.  Powell!  These  extremists, 
mind  ye,  go  too  far.  But  more  perse-oo-asion — thot's  what 
we  should  'awve  aroimd  'ere  in  the  whool  place.  There's 
noon  av  us  thot  wants  a  bit  more  than  proper  joostice. 
Thot — ^with  more  perse-oo-asion — ^and  all  would  be  'appy 
'ere  aboot." 

"All  I  know,"  said  the  much-tried  imder-manager  when 
things  had  cooled  down  just  as  they  came  closest  to  boil- 
ing over,  "all  I  know  is  that  there's  no  pleasure  in  a  job 
like  mine  about  the  place  these  days — when  everybody 
seems  to  want  a  fair  sight  more  than  justice  for  themselves 
and  to  give  a  fair  sight  less  than  justice  to  others  around 
them.     I'm  fair  sick  of  it  all,  I  jolly  well  know  that." 

"It's  not  so  much  what  the  boys  do  'awve  to-day  as  what 
their  forefathers  in  the  mine  been  'awving,"  explained  the 
old  miner  when  we  had  started  back  to  our  "gob"  after  the 
hour's  strenuous  discussion.  "Mony  and  mony  av  us 
'awve  worked  our  furtnight  by  some  place,  ye  oonderstand, 
and  then  'ahd  to  pay  our  buddies  more  than  we  earned 
ourselves.  Too  much  'All  right.  Let  it  lie!'  there  been 
around  by  'ere,  too,  from  a  certain  official  some  years  ago 


70  PULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

and  now.  A  fireman  I  was,  but  it  was  too  much  the  lash  av 
my  tongue  thot  was  to  drive  me  men  for  me  to  stay  on  it. 
I  believe  too  much  in  the  good  of  fair  words  for  the  workin' 
man — I  know  'ow  they  gets  the  best  out  av  me,  ye  oonder- 
stand.  The  new  manager  been  more  for  this  nor  the  old 
un,  but  'e's  'ahd  to  go  way,  fair  sick  and  like  to  die  o'  the 
worry  av  it  all — ^with  the  'Bolshies'  and  all,  these  months." 

His  other  helper,  Sanders,  is  a  clean-cut  young  man  who 
seems  to  have  little  sympathy  with  the  Bolshies,  though 
willing  to  give  their  arguments  a  fair  hearing.  He  sings 
the  leading  part  in  a  home-talent  comic  opera  now  on  the 
boards  and  is  a  teetotaller. 

''Sixteen  year  it  been,"  put  in  the  stalwart  repairer, 
"since  drink  been  on  me  lips.  Me  woman  it  been  thot  do 
the  job.  Pity  thot  I  marry  only  when  forty  years  been 
pawssed.  Oop  till  by  then,  there  been  nothin'  av  evil  but 
I  been  the  doer  av  it — short  of  murderin'  and  thievin'.  .  .  . 
'Twas  when  me  older  brother  died  and  me  mother  been 
'ard  'it — she  and  me  fawther  'ad  no  chawnce  to  lay  by  a 
penny,  ye'  oonderstawnd — 'twas  then  I  told  'er  I'd  play  the 
part  av  a  mon  so  far  as  in  me  lies. 

"Thot  brother  went  to  work  by  'ere  in  this  pit  when  'e 
been  seven.  Carried  in  each  morning  by  me  fawther,  'e 
been,  to  'elp  with  the  doors  and  such  so  the  family  could 
get  the  money  from  the  '  drams.'  At  nine  'twas  me.  .  .  . 
No,  never  no  schoolin'.  Mony's  the  week  I've  come  in  afoor 
sun  oop  and  gone  oot  after  sundown — ^and  then  been  too 
done  in  to  care  whether  the  sun  been  oop  or  down  the 
Simday.  Twelve  hours,  usual — for  ye  could  stay  in  as 
long  as  ye  liked  and  we  'ad  to  stay  long  enough  to  get  the 
drams  we  needed  for  oor  bread  and  keep.  Twelve  hours, 
with  often  a  steady  go  from  Friday  mornin'  till  Saturday 
night  to  try  to  get  a'ead  a  bit.  .  .  .  Yes,  thot  been  in  mony 
minds  av  those  who  hsten  now  to  the  Bolshies — though 
they  do  think  they  go  too  far,  ye  oonderstawnd." 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  71 

"Studying  and  reading  we  are,"  explained  a  member  of 
the  Bolshie  group  this  evening  at  the  public  house,  "so 
now  we're  fit  and  ready  to  govern.  We're  educated  now, 
ye  see,  just  Uke  the  Russian  peasants  that  before  the  Great 
War  was  ignorant.  Now  see  how  well  they're  ruling:  fit 
they  are  now  and  educated.  .  .  .  Well,  that's  because  ye 
read  the  capitahstic  press;  we  'ave  information  direct  from 
Russia  by  unprejudiced  sources  all  about  the  wonderful 
way  the  working  class  is  governing.  We  'ave  classes  in 
Marx  and  all  the  others  right  'ere  and  now  we're  ready  to 
take  over  the  job  of  runnin'  the  country.  First  off,  we  must 
make  the  company  by  'ere  so  much  trouble  that  they  will 
give  over  the  mines  to  the  government.  .  .  .  Now  ye'U  'ave 
another  pint  wi'  me.    Yes,  this  is  my  fifth.'* 

Well,  it  "do  look"  like  an  interesting  place.  The  mak- 
ings of  trouble  are  surely  in  the  air.  Whether  anything 
breaks  out  before  I  get  away  is  a  question,  but  the  chances 
look  good.  With  all  the  smoke  there  should  be  some  fire, 
especially  when  there  appears  to  be  plenty  of  heat  behind 
the  smoke. 

Anyway,  that  "gob"  and  that  "fall"  gave  me  arms  and 
shoulders  that  can  appreciate  a  bed  until  that  strenuous 
and  unforgetting  "knocker-up"  starts  on  his  noisy  rounds 
to-morrow  early. 

Same  Place 
Saturday, 
July  17.^ 

To-day  I  got  my  lamp  and  got  down  to  the  bottom  with- 
out attracting  so  much  attention  as  yesterday.  Old  Evans 
told  me  the  reason: 

"I  been  fair  surprised  at  ye  yesterday.  Ye  see,  no  miner 
do  use  the  overalls,  as  ye  call  them,  such  as  ye  do  wear 
yesterday.  To-day  ye  look  like  a  goodish  miner  man,  wi' 
yer  box  awnd  yer  Jack  in  yer  pocket  like." 

The  tin  box  was  lent  me  by  "the  boss"  and  keeps  your 


72  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

sandwiches  from  being  eaten  by  the  rats  that  infest  the 
mine — also  your  coat,  for  they  often  eat  that  in  trying  to 
get  at  the  food.  The  Jack  is  the  name  for  the  tin  water- 
bottle  or  flask  which,  to  show  you're  a  regular  miner,  must 
be  carried  in  the  coat  pocket.  It  was  positively  comical  to 
see  how  insistent  my  pal  Sanders  was  yesterday  in  giving 
me  instructions  as  to  exactly  what  and  how  and  when  I 
must  do  to-day  so  as  to  show  myself  like  the  rest.  After  he 
had  critically  examined  my  jersey  he  very  considerately 
opined  that  it  would  do,  without  the  muffler  which  would 
otherwise  have  been  the  proper  form.  Of  course,  he  agreed 
with  Evans  that  the  machinist  suit  of  overalls  which  the  local 
storekeeper  put  over  on  me  would  never  do,  because  never 
worn  there  by  anybody  who  ever  did  any  actual  work. 

"In  the  old  days,"  went  on  Evans,  "we  did  used  to  'ave 
'andsome  'Yorks'  of  fine  leather  with  silver  buckles  on  'em 
to  catch  up  our  pants  wi'  below  the  knees,  instead  o'  these 
'ere  strings  as  now.  Awnd  silver  buttons,  too,  been  on  our 
wide-flarin'  pants  at  the  bottoms,  some'at  like  s'ilors.  But 
I  guess  we  gives  such  things  the  attention  like  thot  because 
we  was  wearin'  'em,  those  days,  near  all  the  howers  (hours) 
o'  the  day.  'Twas  Sundays  only  thot  we  did  used  to  wear 
the  reg'lar  ones,  and  seldom  then." 

The  surprising  thing  is,  not  so  much  the  exact  particular- 
ity of  the  requirements  which  go  with  every  job  in  the 
working  world,  but  rather  how  largely  these  requirements 
for  good  form  are  evidently  the  result  of  long  experience. 
Most  of  these  in  this  connection  come  from  that  old  fact 
that  the  miner  works  hard  while  he's  at  it  and  then  "takes 
a  blow"  for  a  short  loaf.  That  means  that  he  must  be  pre- 
pared easily  to  peel  off  the  coat  and  vest  and  shirt  and  have 
on  only  an  undershirt  and  pants  for  the  heavy  sweating  re- 
quired to  rip  the  coal  from  "the  face"  and  get  it  into  the 
"dram,"  or  car,  before  the  "haulier"  comes  to  get  it  out  to 
the  switch  or  "parting"  with  his  handsome  big  horse.    Any- 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  73 

thing  like  shoulder  overalls  that  lessen  the  ease  of  this 
peeling  off  for  the  work,  or  the  later  covering  up  when  the 
walk  back  to  the  bottom  brings  you  more  and  more  into 
the  strong  draft  of  the  fans,  is  sure  to  be  taboo  among 
miners  and — quite  properly. 

Just  now,  at  least,  there  seems  to  be  a  great  deal  of  con- 
versation going  on  in  the  headings — considerably  more  con- 
versation than  perspiration.  This  morning  we  were  shovel- 
ling our  "muck"  of  stone  and  refuse  into  the  gob  pretty 
well,  but  it  was  "down  tools"  for  quite  a  while  when  a 
"bradish  man"  (bratticer  or  partition  and  door  fixer) 
came  along.  After  speaking  of  the  pride  he  had  in  doing  a 
"good  job"  of  air-tightness  on  the  door  near  us,  he  pro- 
ceeded to  help  us  talk  over  the  present  tense  situation  be- 
tween the  management  and  the  men. 

"It's  goin'  too  far  these  Bolshies  be.  Aye,  we  must 
'ave  order  o'  some  kind,  you  know.  But  then  we  must  all 
'ave  the  chawnce  to  play  the  mon,  too.  The  manager  'e 
do  forget  thot.  Of  coorse,  'e  'ave  worked  oop  from  the 
bottom  like,  but  'e  do  think  too  much  we  been  now  the 
same  as  w'en  he  tell  us  always:  'If  ye  do-unt  like  it,  let  it 
he  and  take  yer  tools  and  go.'  And  our  leaders  in  Parlia- 
ment, too — ^wull,  if  they  do  start  a-mis-representin'  us, 
then  'tis  for  us  to  show  'um  by  direct  action.  And  if  thot 
costs  a  few  hves  it  do  only  show  the  value  of  what  we  do 
gain  from  ut — for  things  valooable  do  always  cost  some'at, 
whatever,  doun't  they?  .  .  .  Still,  where  will  law  and  or- 
der be  then,  I  do  wonder,  I  do." 

In  such  talks  "inside"  as  well  as  elsewhere  above  ground 
in  this  part  of  the  coimtry,  the  great  complaint  seems  to  be 
that  the  once  radical  leaders  grow  conservative  the  moment 
they  get  to  ParUament  or  otherwise  come  into  serious  re- 
sponsibility. Thereupon  their  former  constituents  begin  to 
think  disorder  the  only  way  of  getting  their  way — their 
radical  way.    In  any  event,  or,  as  these  people  say,  "what- 


74  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

ever,"  the  extremists  are  quite  evidently  getting  a  pretty 
respectful  hearing  at  the  hands  of  the  older  workers  here 
who  are  much  puzzled  what  to  think  of  it  all.  About  half 
the  usual  amount  of  coal  is  coming  out  of  the  pits.  Fully 
eighty  per  cent  of  the  "colliers"  or  hewers  of  coal  at  the 
face  are  said  to  have  abandoned  all  efifort  to  get  out  a  de- 
cent amount  of  coal  per  day  and  are  taking  the  minimum 
wage  estabUshed  by  law — about  five  pounds  seven  per  week 
— without  really  earning  it.  As  a  result,  accurate  weights 
are  no  longer  of  interest  to  the  men.  So  the  local  union  is 
reported  to  have  dismissed,  quite  without  previous  notice 
and  without  further  responsibiUty  to  them,  the  old  men 
who  for  years  have  served  their  fellow-workers  faithfully  as 
check  weighmen.  These  officials  are  hired  by  the  imion  to 
verify  the  weights  of  each  as  sent  up  and  credited  to  the 
proper  collier.  These  here  are  now  beseeching  the  manage- 
ment for  jobs,  but  they  are  too  old  to  handle  tools.  Every- 
body, whether  worker  or  official,  seems  to  be  about  as  un- 
happy over  it  all  as  the  under-manager  reported  himself 
yesterday.    - 

Underground  the  hours  go  by  with  fair  speed,  partly  be- 
cause we  have  the  seven-hour  day  "from  bank  to  bank" — 
that  is,  from  outside  to  outside,  including  the  two-mile 
walk  each  way.  Outside,  the  women  seem  never  to  finish 
their  work  with  the  threshold  stones,  nor  the  children  their 
play  in  the  streets.  Strangely  enough,  these  last  seem  at 
one  and  the  same  time  the  dirtiest  and  worst  dressed  and 
the  happiest  and  least  quarrelsome  lot  imaginable — also  the 
most  undertoothed  and  ill-toothed.  Am  told  that  this  is 
because  dentists  have  not  yet  come  into  the  valley  except 
rarely,  with  tooth-brushes  an  equal  rarity.  Until  recently 
a  toothache  here  has  meant  appeahng  first  to  a  doctor, 
who  felt  fussing  with  people's  dirty  teeth  beneath  his  dig- 
nity, and  then  going  to  a  certain  miner  who — without  wash- 
ing up  after  his  day  in  the  pit — ^would  reach  for  his  pliers 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  75 

while  the  victim  showed  him  which  tooth  was  guilty,  and 
perhaps  asked  the  doctor  to  hold  his  head !  All  the  young- 
sters seem  to  come  naturally  by  a  fondness  for  singing.  One 
little  tike,  of  less  than  four  with  a  big  chest  and  bigger 
stomach,  stands  up  and  sings  as  though  he  was  the  prize- 
taker  at  an  Eisteddfod,  as  doubtless  he  will  be  some 
day. 

The  moimtains  seem  to  be  in  different  mood  every  time 
we  come  up  out  of  the  pit — though  mostly  they  seem  to  be 
weeping  rain  and  cold  mists  which  make  a  fellow  appreciate 
the  mass  of  heavy  clothes  the  landlady  piles  on  the  bed. 
Which  reminds  me  that  that  "goaf"  or  "gob"  in  the  pit, 
in  spite  of  all  the  day's  dissertations  on  government,  gave 
a  wearisome  day  that  makes  pushing  a  pen  less  attractive 
than  "hitting  the  hay." 

Rhondda  Valley 
Monday,  July  19. 

Well,  it  certainly  looks  as  though  things  were  going  to 
break  loose  around  these  parts!  How  matters  can  go  on 
like  this  much  longer  I'm  sure  I  don't  know — ^unless  the 
management  turns  philanthropist  and  sends  the  men  down 
into  the  pit  merely  to  get  away  from  the  constant  rain  we 
have  on  top !  For  all  day  down  in  the  headings  1,000  feet 
below  it  has  been  little  but  a  succession  of  Bolshevist  meet- 
ings. Although  the  miner,  or  coUier,  to  whom  I  have  been 
transferred,  and  I  did  almost  a  fair  day's  work  in  the  fill- 
ing of  our  trams,  the  others  at  the  face  near  us  were  either 
arguing  lustily  or  singing  most  of  the  day  about  the  beauty 
of  the  "red  flag  of  revolution"  to  the  tune  of  "Maryland,  my 
Maryland!" 

"Ta-k-e.  Ta-k-e  No-t-ice!"  It  was  the  voice  of  the 
town  crier  yesterday  afternoon  that  followed  the  ringing 
of  the  bell  and  started  the  excitement.  "Ta-k-e  no-t-ice! 
A-  gen-er-al  meet-ing  will  be  held  this  af-ter-noon  at  four 
o'c-lock  to  discuss  the  smnmonses."    Of  course,  I  made 


76  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

sure  to  be  there,  although  it  was  intended  only  for  the  mem- 
bers of  the  local  union. 

It  seems  that  some  weeks  ago  the  Monday-morning  shift 
refused  to  go  down  to  work  because  the  Sunday-night  shift 
had  not  gone  in,  due  to  their  wanting  extra  pay  for  the 
Sunday-night  hours.  The  Monday  workers  figured,  of 
course,  that  the  constant  falls  from  a  mine  roof  make  it 
harder  to  work  after  every  shift  that  has  failed  to  take  its 
turn.  This  refusal  for  three  Mondays  had  been  met  by 
sixty  miners  being  "summonsed"  for  the  damages  caused 
the^company  by  their  not  working  without  proper  reason — 
all  according  to  the  Mines  Act  of  the  realm. 

"Thot's  joost  it !  Nobody  cawn  oonderstand  it,  so  'twill 
surely  puzzle  and  embarrass  the  management — ^which  is 
exactly  w'at  we  want — so  they  will  countermand  the  sum- 
monses," the  chairman  was  explaining  to  the  haU  of  about 
four  hundred  miners.  "The  more  contradictory  these 
rules  we're  makin'  now,  the  better." 

"So,  then,  men,  'tis  understood  by  each  and  every  one  and 
we  'ave  all  voted  and  approved  the  rules  to  be  read  now 
by  the  secretary.  'No  coUier  is  to  tumble  'is  tram  (lift 
it  off  the  rails  so  that  a  full  car  may  pass).  No  colUer  is 
to  fill  a  tram  not  provided  with  the  proper  pins  (for  hold- 
ing in  the  end  board  safely).  No  'aulier  is  to  leave  'is 
'orse,  etc.,  etc'  And  all  this  is  to  be  done  even  though  it 
means  sabotage  and  the  sending  out  of  no  coal  at  all,  at  all. 
And  now,  gentlemen,  please  note,  'In  no  case  is  any  coUier 
to  mark  his  nmnber  or  the  location  of  the  coal  he  can  send 
cop  after  due  regardin'  av  these  rules.'" 

The  rules  certainly  seemed  to  cover  every  possible  move, 
even  to  the  non-handling  of  the  "posties"  (posts)  by  the 
timbermen  except  imder  certain  conditions.  On  the  whole, 
too,  the  votes  showed  a  pretty  unanimous  raising  of  hands, 
with  the  biggest  objections,  apparently,  coming  from  the 
still  more  extreme  workers  who  wanted  a  definite  vote  of 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  77 

"down  tools,"  so  as  the  better  to  uphold  their  religion  of 
"direct  action."  Whether  for  or  against,  it  is  certain  that 
every  one  puts  into  the  whole  matter  an  immense  amount 
of  earnestness  and  feeling — ^and  soreness  against  the  man- 
agement. Something  has  surely  been  eating  at  these  men, 
young  and  old:  the  ugUest  words  with  the  most  fervor  be- 
hind them  are  likely  to  get  the  most  handclappings  and 
whisthngs. 

The  high  animation  of  the  meeting  was  still  going  on 
this  morning  when  we  lined  up  to  be  counted  into  the  cage 
at  the  "bank."  On  the  way  up  the  steep  hill  to  the  "tip" 
in  the  pouring  rain,  by  the  way,  I  foimd  myself  catching 
the  spirit  which  underUes  the  miner's  strange  satisfac- 
tion in  his  work  far  down  below  wind  and  weather:  I 
noted  with  imconcern  my  sopping  wet  clothes  and  thought 
how  pleasant — ^how  dry  and  warm — ^it  would  be  down 
there  a  thousand  feet  inside! 

"All  them  rules  be  constitootional  and  accordin'  to  the 
Mines  Act,"  said  my  new  boss  called  WiUiams  the  North 
Walesian,  to  distinguish  him  from  the  numberless  other 
William  Williamses  of  the  town.  "But  this  'ere  not  markin' 
o'  the  drams:  av  thot  I  do  be  ooncertain." 

He  has  been  here  in  this  pit  over  forty  years — ^an  old 
chum  of  my  friend  the  repairer.  It  kept  me  busy  joining 
him  in  his  greetings  of  "How  be?"  and  "Shumei!"  as  we 
passed  the  crowds  waiting  at  the  different  "splits"  or 
"partings"  of  the  headings.  The  way  these  men  can  name 
a  man  yards  and  yards  off  down  the  black  entry  simply  by 
the  way  his  lamp  swings  is  marvellous !  When  necessary, 
he  explained  to  his  friends  that  I  was  studying  mining  with 
him  (all  of  them  have  shown  themselves  extremely  friendly, 
especially  now  that  I  wear  proper  miner's  togs.)  Though 
both  fat  and  old,  "WiUiam"  can  rip  down  enough  coal 
from  the  long  wall  assigned  us  to  keep  me  properly  busy 
with  my  shovel  and  my  "curlin'  box," — &  sort  of  three- 


78  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

sided  wash-pan  or  scoop  for  carrjdng  it  to  the  tram.  In- 
stead of  putting  us  into  a  "room"  by  ourselves  this  system 
of  "long  wall"  mining  gives  us  a  wide  "stall"  where  only 
a  brattice  or  partition  of  canvass  separates  us  from  a  dozen 
and  more  others  working  at  the  same  face.  While  we  have 
kept  going,  these  others  seem  to  have  given  the  turn  mostly 
to  discussing  the  new  rules  and  damning  the  management 
— ^and  'most  everything  else. 

"But,  av  coorse,  rehgion  be  only  a  cloak  to  cover  and  pro- 
tict  the  capitalists  while  they  rob  the  workin'  classes," 
says  one  in  rebuttal  of  the  driller.  The  latter  is  Salvation 
Army  exhorter  on  week-ends.  He  quotes  the  Good  Book 
about  "do  imto  others"  and  shakes  his  puzzled  head  with 
his  "WuU,  I  been  fair  woonderin'  whether  Jesus  Christ 
been  Bolshie  were  'e  'ere  the  noo." 

"War  'ave  wokened  the  worker,  ye  oonderstand,  to 
know  'is  trimindyoos  power.  To  a  degree — 'tis  only 
thot,  to  a  degree — ^we  know  oor  power  now.  And  I  do  be 
thinkin'  thot  war  between  oos  awnd  the  United  States 
would  wike  the  workpeople  av  the  whool  worrld,  becoose 
'twould  wike  the  worrkers  of  the  two  countries  thot  dom- 
ineer the  worrld,  ye  oonderstand.  Av  coorse,  the  capital- 
ists do  be  clever  in  niver  goin'  quite  too  far  in  their  oppres- 
sions. 'Twould  be  better  if  they  did.  But  the  worrld 
war  be  the  oondoin'  av  them,  whatever." 

My  Ustenings  get  a  sharp  word  from  WiUiam  as  he  places 
some  enormous  chunks  of  coal  in  a  position  to  raise  the 
walls  of  the  tram,  thus  requiring  a  tremendous  swing  for 
me  to  get  my  box  of  coals  or  "curls"  to  the  top.  Since 
we  are  working  in  the  "two  foot  nine"  seam  that  swing 
generally  means  a  bump  on  my  head,  even  though  the  seam 
where  we  are  now  is  thicker  than  its  name.  With  a  final 
"Three  Cheers  for  the  Revolution!"  from  the  others,  the 
Salvation  Army  man  turns  to  holding  his  drill  to  the  hole 
in  the  hard  stone  roof  while  his  buddy  keeps  up  a  steady, 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  79 

ringing  succession  of  sledge  blows  upon  it — for  these  two 
are  day  or  job  men,  not  colliers,  and  therefore  not  so  free 
to  decide  whether  they  will  work  or  not. 

Of  course  William  and  I  took  our  ''blow"  after  we  had 
walked  the  two  miles  to  our  location  past  some  bad  bumps 
on  my  head  and  under  some  awful  pieces  of  "  top."  In  one 
of  these  he  turned,  and  after  pointing  to  some  dreadful  look- 
ing roof,  touched  his  Ups  to  counsel  silence  for  fear  of  caus- 
ing a  fall.  That's  one  reason  why  I've  not  liked  the  lusty 
songs  about  the  Revolution;  it  makes  the  roof  vibrate  and 
drop  sUvers  of  slate  on  old  William  and  me  as  we  work! 
In  other  places  he  woxild  indulge  in  occasional  listening  to 
make  sure  that  no  part  of  it  was  "working."  Laboring 
from  about  eight  and  then  starting  back  on  the  long  tire- 
some trudge  to  the  bottom  at  one  or  12.45,  with  an  hour 
instead  of  the  theoretical  twenty  minutes  out  for  eating  and 
dozing,  does  not  leave  a  great  amount  of  time  for  actual 
work,  especially  when  the  haulier  is  seldom  on  hand  with 
his  horse  as  soon  as  the  tram  is  ready.  But  while  it  lasts 
it  is  hot  work,  especially  when  the  colUer  has  to  kneel  and 
with  mighty  pick  strokes  and  heavy  grunts  "nick  his  cor- 
ner," that  is,  cut  the  farther  end  of  our  stall  away  from  the 
soUd  pillar  of  coal  that  seems  to  grip  the  face  near  it  with 
the  tightness  of  stone.  It  seems  that  the  long-wall  method 
of  working  is  favored  partly  because  of  its  easier  venti- 
lation and  partly  because  the  elastic  kind  of  roof  we  have 
here  serves  to  push  the  coal  forward  toward  the  collier  in 
a  way  which  permits  the  ripping  off  of  great  bulging  yards 
of  it  except  where  it  connects  up  with  the  seam  at  the 
"corners,"  where  the  roof  is  still  supported  by  the  un- 
mined  vein.  No  machine  cutting  is  needed,  and  no  explo- 
sive charge.  The  unpleasant  part  is  that  this  more  elastic 
roof  is  said  also  to  be  more  dangerous ! 

"By  'ere!  Quick,  mon,  quick!"  Under  the  timbers!" 
John  yelled  with  all  his  might  at  me  this  morning  as  a  huge 


80  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

shelf  or  cliff  of  the  black  stuff  responded  to  his  pick  and 
started  to  fall  in  a  way  to  knock  out  the  timbers  nearest 
the  face,  and  so  to  endanger  the  top  above  us.  I  certainly 
did  some  scrambhng ! 

''Ye'U  be  knowing  the  meanin'  o'  this?"  he  later  asked, 
when  on  our  way  out  we  came  by  a  long  gray  box  the  size 
of  a  coffin  in  one  of  the  silent  headings  and  he  hfted  his 
lamp  to  show  the  stretcher  inside  it.  I  thought  of  it — 
indeed  I  doubt  if  I'll  ever  forget  it's  gray  and  silent  sombre- 
ness — a  few  minutes  later,  when  we  came  nearer  the  bottom 
by  the  hoist  and  found  the  wire  cables  humming  and  swing- 
ing dangerously  as  they  pulled  up  to  the  bottom  the  small 
number  of  trams  the  day's  work  had  turned  out.  "These 
do  daunt  me  some'at,"  he  shouted  above  the  roar  of  the 
"ropes."  "The  overman  'ere  mony  a  year  is  in  bed  be- 
cause of  'um  now." 

While  we  waited  for  our  turn  at  the  hoist  a  young  worker 
with  a  very  bright  face  told  of  his  seven  living  children  with 
two  others  dead,  and  of  his  start  in  the  mining  at  the  age 
of  eleven  years  and  eight  months — also  of  his  broken  leg 
from  one  of  these  same  ropes  on  his  second  day.  About 
the  Bolshies  he  said  under  his  breath: 

"They're  overproud  of  themselves  and  their  extremes. 
But,  after  all,  they're  the  mouthpiece  of  the  whool  crowd 
of  us,  for  all  of  us  are  fair  un'appy." 

From  him  and  others  at  the  pit-head  we  learned  that  in 
some  districts  or  parts  of  the  mine  the  colliers  had  marked 
their  trams,  while  in  others  they  had  refused  to  mark  them, 
and  so  been  told  to  leave  for  the  day.  Without  the  mark- 
ing of  the  location  the  company  is,  of  course,  powerless  to 
know  where  the  coal  comes  from  and  so  to  what  landowners 
to  pay  the  royalties  of  so  much  per  ton. 

Evidently  the  first  day's  battle  had  been  a  draw.  Some 
new  move  will  doubtless  be  the  plan  of  the  leaders  for  to- 
morrow.   There  it  is  ppw!    The  bell  of  the  crier  and  his 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  81 

ominous  "Ta-ke  no-ti-ce.  A  general  mee-t-ing  will  be 
held  at  six  o'clock — to  discuss  the  summonses." 

It  wouldn't  be  surprising  if  some  pretty  rough  proposals 
— possibly,  even,  some  bloody  ones — were  put  forth,  judg- 
ing from  some  of  the  whispers  against  the  management 
heard  to-day: 

"Millions  the  company  'awve  mide  durin'  the  war! 
MiUions !  .  .  .  A  tyrant  'e  is  and  alius  been,  this  hagent 
(agent  is  the  term  for  a  sort  of  general  manager).  It's  a 
petition  we  should  get  oop  fer  awskin'  of  'im  to  leave  the 
town.  .  .  .  Self-made  'e  been,  but  a  self  mon  too,  all  for 
number  one,  'e  been,  never  a  farthin'  for  the  other  chap !" 

When  men  grow  as  "fair  un'appy"  on  their  jobs  as  these, 
they  seem  to  care  amazingly  httle  what  happens  to  them 
in  the  other  sectors  of  their  hving.  That's  perhaps  the 
dynamic  which  gets  the  work  of  the  world  done,  but  it 
can  also  be  the  dynamite  which  may  blow  the  top  off  when 
things  go  wrong  with  the  job. 

Well,  we  shall  see  what  we  shall  see.  Anyway,  I  wouldn't 
leave  the  place  right  now  for  a  life  royalty  on  all  the  coal  in 
the  whole  country! 

It  is  these  ton  royalties,  by  the  way,  that  contribute 
greatly  to  the  current  unhappiness  in  coal  circles  generally. 
It  seems  that  the  famous  Sankey  Coal  Commission  of 
some  years  ago  revealed  that  the  bulk  of  these  royalties, 
aggregating  huge  sums,  went  to  a  comparatively  few  great 
families  made  great  by  some  Kingly  grant  centuries  ago. 

July  20th. 

The  war  is  on — ^with  the  tide  turning  in  favor  of  the 
Bolshies ! 

This  morning  we  all  obeyed  the  appeals  of  the  leaders 
at  last  night's  meeting  to  "carry  on"  and  so  went  down  in 
the  pit  as  usual — only  to  attend  a  succession  of  meetings 
at  each  of  the  junction  points  for  the  discussion  of  the 


82  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

question,  "to  mark  or  not  to  mark  the  trams."  As  near 
like  the  factory  soviet  meetings  of  Russia  as  anything 
imaginable  these  gatherings  certainly  are — ^as  the  men  put 
their  lamps  on  the  ground  or  suspend  them  from  their 
knees  while  they  sit  there  in  groups,  in  the  black  and  silent 
headings,  talking  now  Enghsh  and  now  Welsh  but  always 
with  fervor.  A  husky  lot  of  men  they  are,  assuredly,  in 
their  heavy  wooden  or  cobbled  shoes,  ragged  coats,  black- 
ened mufflers  or  neckerchiefs  and  grimy  trousers,  with  huge 
leather  belts,  and  tied  beneath  their  knees  by  their  string 
"yorks."  Though  some  of  them  seem  to  have  spent  too 
many  hours  away  from  the  sun,  their  faces  are  strongly 
drawn  and  well  endowed,  with  strong  cheek-bones,  good 
noses,  and  forward  chins. 

Public  opinion  seems  to  have  been  doing  a  lot  of  work — 
in  favor  of  the  meetings  and  their  resolutions.  Says  my 
old  buddy  to  the  crowd  in  his  great  deep  voice: 

"This  not  markin'  o'  the  drams  is  child's  play  and  I 
be  not  goin'  along  wi'  it,  ye  oonderstawnd.  But  I  do'un't 
like  a  black-leg.  Last  night  at  the  Park  pub  there  been 
them  as  says  to  me:  'Wot  mean  ye  bloody  duffers  in  two 
foot  nine  by  a-markin'  o'  yer  drams,  hye?'  .  .  .  No,  I 
cawnt  think  av  the  rest  o'  the  byes  'ere  a-pointin'  of  their 
fingers  at  me — ^and  the  youngsters  on  the  street,  mebbe, 
a-hootin'  at  me  kids  after  I  been  dead  and  gone!  Thot 
do  fair  daimt  me.  Aye.  So  I'm  not  a-markin'  o'  me  drams 
to-day — ^and  be  damned  to  'um !" 

When  the  horses  and  the  hauliers  came  along  as  if  noth- 
ing Was  wrong,  we  broke  up  the  meeting  and  proceeded 
farther  down  the  heading  to  another  split  or  switch,  where 
we  fomid  another  group  in  the  midst  of  heated  arguments 
and  denunciations  of  the  company  and  the  black-legs. 
Then,  perhaps,  on  again  until  finally  there  came  back 
from  farther  on  a  group  that  said  the  inspector  in  our 
district  "will  na'  lock  oor  lamps!"    So  every  one  could 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  83 

feel  that  they  had  "carried  on"  accordmg  to  instructions 
to  "Go  in  until  the  company  turns  ye  back — and  we'll 
claim  damages  from  the  mawsters  later  for  refusin'  to  let 
us  work  without  due  cause."  When  we  came  down  in  a 
body  to  the  butts  or  main  passages  at  the  bottom  by  the 
shaft,  many  were  singing  lustily — ^and  most  musically, 
too,  about  the  "blood-red  banners  of  the  hoped-for  new 
order."  As  the  legs  of  one  hoist  load  disappeared  above 
us  we  heard  a  mighty  shout — ^with  the  other  two  of  the 
"Three  cheers  for  the  revolution!"  drowned  by  the  roar 
of  the^up-caught  cage. 

Of  course  the  pubs  have  been  crowded.  Doubtless  the 
excitement  has  justified  many  an  additional  pint. 

"Aye,  my  principles  do  cost  me  a  quid  a  week  or  more," 
said  a  young  and  rather  serious  collier  who  came  up  to  me 
with  an  offer  to  treat  in  apology  for  his  words  of  the  morn- 
ing that  had  showed  how  tense  the  situation  was  becoming. 
He  had,  in  fact,  given  me  one  of  the  thickest  instants  of 
the  summer  so  far.  Down  in  the  mine  while  others  were 
going  out  I  had  asked  some  one  where  I  could  find  the 
"under-super"  for  a  question  or  two.  Luckily  I  could 
not  find  him.  When  I  rejoined  a  group  I  heard  this  man 
ask  angrily  of  the  leader  of  the  meetings: 

"W'at  about  this  'ere  foreigner  American  a-workin'  and 
a-takin'  of  our  jobs  w'ilst  we  fight  for  our  rights?" 

I  could  do  nothing  but  watch  the  face  of  the  leader  and 
wait.  Luckily  the  leader  saw  me  and  laughed  his  "W'y 
mon,  right  'ere  'e  is!" 

"Aye,"  my  apologist  went  on,  "wi'  the  stall  I  'as  Tcould 
easy  mike  more  nor  the  minimum,  but  'twould  not  be  fair 
to  the  others.  And  we  must  get  away  from  piece-work 
thot  mikes  differences  between  comrades — ^besides  mikin' 
men  old  before  their  time." 

Here  one  of  his  chums  came  up  with  his  pint  and  his 
apology  to  my  friend.    "Hi  be  'e  as  spoke  in  'aste  and 


84  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

anger  to  ye  this  momin',  Thomas,  when  ye  called  this  mon 
a  foreigner.  For  well  ye  know  that  amongst  us  of  the 
International  Fraternity  all  nation  do  be  one.  Only  dif- 
ferences of  clawss  do  count  to  divide  men.  But  too  sharp 
Hi  spoke,  and  'ere's  me  'awnd  on't.  Thou  know'st  I  do 
mean  it." 

''The  w'ip  of  the  mawsters,  'tis  thot  thot  we  be  makin' 
shorter  now  and  this  be  the  wye  to  fight  'um  through  the 
lessenin'  of  output.  Sabotage  is  a  tool  thot  ony  mon  of 
principle  can  wield — ^and  must."  That  seems  to  be  the 
general  philosophy. 

Outside  the  pit,  a  few  minutes  ago,  I  met  a  bright  young 
son  of  an  educated  Continental  father  and  Welsh  mother 
who  is  said  to  be  the  leader  of  the  more  intellectual  of  the 
Bolshies.  He  is  without  doubt  a  clever  thinker  in  the 
meetings  and  in  an  argument  one  of  the  best  talkers  and 
arguers  I  have  seen  in  a  long  time.  It  would  seem  proper 
in  a  way,  too,  to  say  that  he  is  an  idealist.  He  has  a  well- 
modelled  face,  sensitive  but  strong  chin,  eye-glasses,  and 
thick  black  hair.  His  reasoning  shows  how  many  ways 
there  are  to  arrive  at  a  conclusion  if  it  but  be  in  the  line  of 
our  desires.  Here,  I  submit,  is  a  strong  road  to  follow 
for  landing  in  a  soviet: 

"Well,  I  may  be  wrong,  but  I  am  gambling  the  next 
ten  or  twelve  years  of  my  life  on  my  confidence  that  Rus- 
sia has  found  the  solution  of  the  whole  problem  of  modern 
industrial  life.  That  solution  is  the  soviet.  If  that  is  true 
then  Russia  is  going  to  make  every  other  nation  of  the 
world  adopt  the  same  plan  or  be  beaten  by  the  competition 
and  the  pressure  of  right  methods  in  business  and  govern- 
ment. Of  course,  the  successful  adoption  of  that  method 
means  the  same  cost  of  life  of  those  that  sigh  for  the  old 
flesh-pots  of  class  privilege  here  as  it  meant  in  Russia. 
There  must  be  the  drenching  before  the  firm  seating  of 
the  proletariat.    But  that  is  only  a  temporary  stage.    Even 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  85 

now — before  the  drenching  is  finished — they  are  giving 
better  conditions  to  the  people  as  a  whole  in  Russia  than 
anywhere  on  earth — that  we  know  by  our  secret  channels 
of  information. 

"...  The  great  success  of  the  revolutionary  propaganda 
throughout  the  world  is  due  more  than  anything  else  to  its 
clear-cut  opposition  to  alcohol.  Drink  does  more  harm 
to  the  Enghsh  worker  than  all  other  factors  together. 
One  reason  why  I  am  so  much  of  a  pussyfooter  (anti- 
drink  propagandist)  is  this:  during  the  war  when  the  pubs 
were  closed  more  than  now  we  had  full  classes  studying 
Karl  Marx  and  all  sorts  of  revolutionary  books  and  sys- 
tems of  economics  down  at  my  rooms  and  elsewhere.  The 
moment  the  boys  could  spend  more  time  with  their  pints, 
the  classes  fell  off  badly.  ...  If  we  can  get  all  to  stand 
together  without  flinching,  our  sabotage  will  soon  make 
the  masters  reaUze  that  their  operation  of  the  mines  is 
unprofitable.  You  see,  output  is  where  they  live,  of  course. 
.  .  .  And  we  shall  then  be  ready  for  taking  them  over  for 
the  workers  to  operate. 

"With  the  coming  of  the  minimum-wage  law  in  1911  a 
man  can  always  be  sure  of  a  living  and  things  are  not  so 
bad — especially  now  that  practically  all  the  coUiers  are 
off  of  piece-work.  But  up  till  then — ^well,  often  and  often 
a  man  could  sweat  and  sweat  and  still  not  earn  anything 
from  a  bad  place  and  besides,  was  likely  to  be  told  by  this 
agent  we  have  here — and  have  had  for  nearly  forty  years 
— that  he  could  go  if  he  hked,  for  there  were  always  job- 
less men  ready  to  take  his  place.  Up  till  then  it  has  been 
a  dog's  life,  especially  here  in  Wales  where  the  masters  are 
making  millions  though  their  equipment  and  methods  are 
fifty  years  behind  the  times." 

I'd  give  a  lot  to  know  to  what  extent  the  philosophiz- 
ings  at  his  maturity  have  been  influenced  by  the  hurt 
feelings  of  his  youth  and  childhood,  following  upon  his 


86  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

birth  as  an  illegitimate  or,  as  it's  called  here,  a  "chance" 
child.  It  would  not  be  strange  if  the  war  had  badly  em- 
bittered him.  After  finally  being  made  legitimate,  as  a 
youth,  the  war  necessity  of  knowing  who  every  citizen  was, 
put  him  back  into  the  status  of  the  illegitimate. 

Wednesday, 
July  21st. 

It's  not  strange  that  it  happened.  Sooner  or  later  it 
was  bound  to  come.  By  some,  of  course,  it  is  regretted 
as  being  the  work  of  a  drunken  rowdy — "A  sober  mon 
would  not  throw  bricks  through  the  hagent's  window!" 
By  others  the  bricks  are  seriously — though  rather  silently — 
approved  as  indicating  to  the  management  the  feeUng  of 
the  town  without,  at  the  same  time,  resulting  too  seriously. 
Anyway,  the  assault  is  on  everybody's  tongue.  There  are 
two  or  three  imported  constables  in  the  streets,  and  the 
whole  situation  is  even  tenser  than  before. 

Last  night  the  deputation  sent  to  see  the  general  manager 
of  all  the  company's  pits  reported  to  the  meeting  that 
they  had  been  given  no  consideration  at  all  and  that  it 
was  of  the  utmost  importance  to  keep  up  the  fight  in  the 
bitterest  possible  form.  All  seemed  to  agree  with  the 
committee,  especially  when  word  came  that  the  stipen- 
diary, or  judge  of  the  County  Court,  in  charge  of  such  cases 
had  sustained  the  "smnmonses."  That  meant  that  the 
thousand  miners  at  the  two  local  pits  would  be  required 
to  give  over  to  the  company,  out  of  their  wages,  damages 
for  the  three  Mondays  of  lost  work  totaUing  more  than 
2,000  pounds !  At  this  there  was  a  babel  of  whistles,  hoots, 
jeers,  and  calls  of  "For  shime!" 

It  was  not  surprising  to  see  a  great  deal  of  bitterness 
come  out  during  the  meeting  between  the  men  themselves, 
the  majority  of  the  workers  of  one  pit  having  gone  against 
the  vote  of  the  majority  and  "stabbed  their  comrades  in 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  87 

the  back"  by  continuing  to  work  and  to  mark  their  trams. 
It  would  not  be  easy  to  imagine  more  impassioned  appeals 
than  were  made  to  these  to  show  unity  of  purpose — "if 
not  for  yourselves  then  for  the  next  generation  to  follow  ye. 
We  speak  to  the  better  man  in  ye!"  Nor  more  deadly 
earnestness  than  that  with  which  some  of  the  offenders 
pleaded  their  case  because  of  their  personal  debts,  on  the 
one  hand,  or,  on  the  other,  their  all  but  fanatical  convic- 
tion that  they  must  oppose  every  plan  which  was  not  out 
and  out  strike  and  direct  action. 

"Mr.  Chairman  and  fellow-workmen!  Mr.  Chairman 
and  fellow-workmen!!"  His  voice  shook  with  his  earnest- 
ness and  emotion  as  one  old  fellow  pleaded  for  his  con- 
science. "A  mon  do  'awve  alius  the  dooty  of  'is  convic- 
tions. I  protest  thot  I  be  not  a  moral  criminal  in  the 
markin'  o'  me  drame!  Now  w'y  don't  we  down  tools? 
In  thot  case  I  would  do  aught  thot  ony  mon  could  wish." 

It  was  more  than  evident,  too,  from  numerous  questions 
that  to  many  of  them  the  thought  of  their  share  of  the 
2,000  pounds  sterhng  was  nothing  short  of  terrifying.  I 
know  of  no  way  in  the  world  for  finding  the  value  of  money 
equal  to  attending  such  a  meeting  where  men's  voices 
ring  with  both  anger  and  the  tenderest  of  emotion  when 
they  name  what  seem  very  moderate  sums,  knowing  that 
those  sums  represent  the  difference  between  comfort  and 
suffering  for  their  wives  and  children. 

The  vote  to  carry  on  was  unanimous — so  much  so  that 
practically  every  one  in  our  pit  felt  certain  that  it  would 
only  be  a  matter  of  marching  this  morning  up  the  hill 
that  leads  away  from  the  bottom  of  the  pit,  telling  the 
over-man  that  we  would  not  mark  the  trams  and  then 
marching  down  again  and  going  back  up  to  the  bank  in 
the  hoist.  And  so  it  was — except  for  a  few  meetings  again 
on  the  way,  with  the  safety-lamps  shining  into  faces  more 
than  ever  determined  to  take  every  chance  for  convinc- 


88  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

ing  the  "mawsters"  of  the  futility  of  trying  to  collect  the 
heavy  charge  assessed  and  sustained  by  the  court.  I 
only  wish  I  cotdd  draw  the  picture  of  those  determined 
faces,  the  gray  and  silent  rocks,  and  timbers  of  the  roof, 
the  safety-lamps,  suspended  across  well-patched,  swarthy 
knees  or  leaned  against  heavy  wood-soled  shoes,  the  glints 
of  their  light  reflected  back  from  the  flashing  eyes  of  troub- 
led men,  the  walls  of  coal  or  the  tin  boxes  and  jacks  in  an 
occasional  pocket — the  soUd  frame  of  darkness  enclosing  all. 

All  day,  of  course,  it  has  been  more  talking.  One  group 
was  made  up  of  three  of  the  oldest  and  most  serious  of  all 
those  I  have  met  or  listened  to. 

"Two  bawd  it  be,"  said  one,  "thot  the  manager  do  not 
move  from  out  the  toown.  W'y?  the  other  day,  his  deputy  be 
down  in  me  district  and  'e  tell  me  'Tom,  thot  be  a  good  job.' 
I  tell  'im,  'In  over  forty  year  'ere  thot  be  the  first  time  thot 
ony  mon  fer  the  company  do  sye  to  me,  "Tom,  thot  be  a 
good  job.'" 

"  0,  aye !  W'y,  for  a  good  word,"  cut  in  one  of  the  others, 
"  a  mon  o'  sensibiHty  do  work  'is  guts  out !  But  no  dog  be- 
'ave  well  for  a  mawster  with  a  w'ip,  and  for  a  man  of  feelin' 
the  w'ip  of  the  tongue  and  the  lash  of  the  lip  been  worse 
nor  ony  w'ip  on  ony  dog.  For  thot  we  'awve  so  much  o' 
this  lash  this  forty  year  we  do  foUow  as  we  do  these  ex- 
tremists, though  where  we  do  be  a-comin'  at  'tis  fair  'ard 
to  say  in  such  a  bower  (hour)  as  this." 

"These  Bolshies  no  oonderstood  Bible,"  put  in  a  North 
Walesian  rock-driller  who  had  learned  his  English  too  late 
to  get  his  tenses.  "I  think  Jesus  Christ  no  Bolshie.  .  .  . 
But  I  see  my  family  starve  befoor  go  in  for  work  one  more 
day  against  majority,  hke  yesterday !" 

"Oh,  aye!  Thou  knowst!"  assents  a  companion.  "I 
do  know  thy  neighbor  Evan  Thomas  do  say  yesterday  as 
'e  do  'awve  'is  eye  on  thee !  .  .  .  Yet  'e  would  na'  wish 
thee  'arm,  whatever." 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  89 

Again  there  is  to  be  a  meeting  to-night — with  the  pos- 
sibility of  news  from  another  deputation  that  has  been  in 
conference  with  the  management,  under  the  leadership 
of  one  of  the  union's  wisest  county  officials.  Again  the 
second  of  the  pits  has  been  working,  although  our  own 
has  been  entirely  out.  Regret  at  the  failure  of  the  attempt 
on  the  official's  Ufe  is  amazingly  outspoken.  Close  knots^of 
men  are  always  to  be  seen  and  the  women  seem  to  have 
much  to  whisper  to  each  other  from  their  door-steps,  even 
though  the  everlasting  scrubbing  of  the  stones  continues 
unabated. 

One  of  the  country's  new  women  justices  of  the  peace 
spoke  the  other  night  while  we  waited  to  hear  from  a  depu- 
tation. She  made  a  fervent  appeal  that  the  wife  of  the 
worker  should  enjoy  all  the  comforts  of  electric  equipment 
the  same  as  the  finest  ladies  of  the  land.  I  could  not  make 
out  whether  she  secretly  reahzed  where  some  of  the  trouble 
lay  when  she  passed  on  to  urge  that  the  miners  here  pass 
the  two-thirds  vote  necessary  by  law  to  compel  the  com- 
pany to  put  in  pit-head  baths  for  an  up-keep  charge  on  the 
men  of  only  threepence  per  week.  For  her  electric  equip- 
ment would  seem  to  have  small  chance  when  local  opinion 
seems  to  be  so  divided  upon  the  matter  of  changing  the 
present  habits  and  traditions  which  keep  the  women  forever 
scrubbing  up  after  their  men  have  brought  all  the  dust  and 
grime  of  the  mine  into  the  house. 

"Just  when  I  have  succeeded  in  gettin'  cleaned  oop,  then 
'usband  comes  'ome  and  starts  disorderin'  things  with  'is 
bathin'"  (pronounced  "bath-in"),  says  the  wife  of  the 
repairer  with  whom  I  have  just  had  tea.  So  it  seems  to 
be  everywhere  in  the  town  as  well  as  here  in  this  house. 
Luckily  there  is  a  "bosh,"  or  trough,  where  the  "tap"  runs, 
and  for  the  ordinary  wash  the  hot  water  is  poured  into  it 
after  it  has  served  for  the  washing  of  the  dishes  and  every- 
thing else  in  the  household.    I  found  it  embarrassing  that 


90  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

first  day  to  know  just  when  the  young  wife  of  the  over- 
man was  going  to  leave  off  helping  me  with  the  tub  of 
hot  water  for  the  bath  that  is  inseparable  from  the  min- 
er's work,  and  so  allow  me  to  continue  the  process  in  pri- 
vacy. On  all  sides  I  learn  now  that  hardly  a  woman  in  the 
town  but  has  grown  up  from  childhood  perfectly  accustomed 
to  seeing  her  father  and  brother  doing  their  "bath-in"  un- 
concernedly in  the  kitchen,  w^hich  usually  serves  also  for 
general  dining-room  and  sitting-room. 

"A  greater  cause  of  immorahty  it  be  than  all  else  to- 
gether— this  kitchen  bath-in,"  is  the  way  all  the  yoimg 
men  support  the  statement  of  the  woman  speaker. 

The  obstacles  in  the  way  of  the  two-thirds  vote^or  the 
pit-head  baths  are  considerable,  apparently.  At  a  recent 
national  meeting  a  miner  who  proposed  putting  all  the 
cost  on  the  employers  admitted  that  at  some  mines  only 
fifteen  per  cent  of  the  miners  used  them  and  at  the  most 
successful  installation  only  fifty  per  cent.  "How  can  a 
mon  get  his  clothes  dry — or  mended?"  "'E  do  be  sure 
to  take  cold  a-coomin'  'ome."  These  are  the  points  heard, 
besides,  of  course,  the  one  imported  long  ago  from  these 
regions  into  our  American  mines,  namely,  that  it  is  de- 
cidedly unsafe  and  unhygienic  for  a  miner  to  wash  his 
back!  Last  night  I  met  a  yoimgster  next  to  me  in  the 
meeting  with  whom  this  question  had  got  past  the  stage 
of  argument. 

"Well,  I  know  w'at  'appens.  With  me  'tis  no  argument. 
Both  'ave  I  tried,  washin'  and  no  washin'.  And  I  know 
that  washin'  do  give  me  a  cold!    So  there  ye  are!" 

It  would  seem  to  me  that  nothing  would  do  so  much  to 
improve  the  men's  respect  for  themselves  as  to  put  an  end 
to  this  constant  passing  up  and  down  the  street  in  black- 
ened clothes  and  faces.  Certainly  nothing  would  do  so 
much  t<y  lessen  the  heavy  burden  on  the  women.  Town 
sentiment  certainly  requires  the  housewife   to  have   her 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  91 

threshold  on  the  street  well  soapstoned  and  all  the  brasses 
shining  to  the  limit  if  she  is  to  hold  her  head  up  among  her 
neighbors — I  wonder,  by  the  way,  if  that's  the  reason  why 
the  greatest  compliment  to  the  standing  of  a  family  and 
their  respectabihty  here  is:  "Tidy  people,  they  are.  Aye, 
fine  and  tidy  they  be!"  The  strange  thing  is  that  the 
social  requirements  seem  quite  fully  to  allow  the  keeper 
of  the  shining  stones  and  brasses  to  appear  at  nearly  all 
hours  of  the  day  as  the  last  word  of  personal  sloppiness 
and  disorder.  If  it  is  true,  as  it  very  well  may  be,  that 
the  two  requirements  of  both  domestic  and  personal  tidi- 
ness are  mutually  exclusive,  it  seems  odd  that  there  should 
not  have  been  a  strike  against  the  domestic  in  favor  of  the 
personal  cleanliness.  At  the  very  least,  it  would  look  as 
though  the  wives  should  get  up  a  movement  in  favor  of 
the  pit-head  baths.  But  it  is  altogether  probable  that 
they  are  as  much  the  victims  of  the  traditions  of  the  op- 
position as  are  their  husbands — and  would  be  probably  as 
much  so  in  the  matter  of  electricity,  too. 

At  any  rate,  the  mothers  are  not  the  only  ones  who  pay 
the  price  of  hard  work  for  those  traditions  which  favor 
daily  dirty  faces  on  the  street  and  perennially  dirty  backs 
in  the  kitchen — unless  wives  or  daughters  wash  them. 
The  young  girls  help  with  the  scrubbing,  with  a  coarse 
waist,  generally  black,  around  them  and  a  piece  of  rough 
sacking  over  their  short  skirts,  their  soapstones  and  brushes 
clasped  firmly  in  hand.  The  still  younger  sisters  are  quite 
likely  to  be  "nursing"  the  baby — with  the  yoimgster  held 
to  their  waist  by  their  way  of  folding  a  "nursin'  shawl" 
about  them  so  as  to  give  a  free  arm.  In  some  cases  the 
yoimg  nurse  is  scarcely  larger  than  the  nursed — ^using  all 
her  childish  strength  to  lift  her  precious  load  to  her  Uttle 
shoulder.  How  it  can  fail  to  stunt  some  of  the  loyal  maids 
I  cannot  see. 

Just  at  this  moment — and  for  some  days  back — I  must 


92  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

confess  I  have  been  the  victim  of  the  bad  mood  which  all 
this  work  induces  in  the  bodies  and  minds  of  the  women 
and  children  of  the  place.  On  all  these  days  my  land- 
lady's temper — but  perhaps  it  is  something  in  me  that 
helps  my  surrounding  circumstances  to  put  me  on  edge  here 
in  the  house  when  I  eat  my  meals  in  the  Uttle  room  where 
I  can  hear  her  scolding  and  shouting  at  her  whimpering 
little  girl  of  about  a  year  and  a  half.  Anyway,  I'll  not 
trust  myself  to  blame  her  nor  to  tell  more  of  it  until  I  am 
less  weary — and  touchy — than  at  present.  Perhaps,  too, 
we  are  all  of  us  a  little  on  edge  with  the  uncertainty  of  the 
situation  generally.  At  any  rate  we  are  all  hoping  that 
the  meeting  to-night  will  give  news  that  matters  have  taken 
a  turn  more  favorable  to  quiet — ^also  to  work  and  wages. 
And  now  to  the  crier's  party. 

Thursday, 
July  22nd. 

Peace — or,  at  least,  near-peace — ^at  last! 

Nearly  everybody  seemed  to  be  glad  to  get  back  to 
work  again  this  morning.  On  the  whole,  more  coal  prob- 
ably went  up  to-day  than  when  the  trouble  was  first  start- 
ing. It's  not  over  yet,  but  at  any  rate  the  deputation 
brought  back  to  last  night's  meeting  the  news  that  the 
head  officials  had  agreed  to  reduce  the  damages  to  the 
small  sum  of  150  pounds,  with  several  weeks  for  the  pay- 
ment of  it.  At  the  same  time  the  county  leader  of  the 
union  who  was  mainly  responsible  for  the  settlement  of 
the  affair  told  the  meeting  that  they  were  all  "down  the 
drain"  in  the  likelihood  of  their  getting  any  damages  from 
the  company  for  sending  them  out  of  the  mine  after  they 
refused  to  mark  their  cars.  But  nobody  seemed  to  take 
that  very  hard  as  long  as  he  and  the  others  of  the  depu- 
tation had  made  it  possible  for  everybody  to  go  back  to 
earning  their  money  without  losing  their  face,  seeing  that 
the  management  had  given  in  and  lessened  the  damages. 


''BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  93 

"Well,  this  do  be  a  good  thing,  for  it  do  show  tha  low 
sort  of  leaders  we  do  'ave  'ereabouts, "  was  the  way  some 
of  the  older  and  more  conservative  men  put  it  this  morn- 
ing as  we  all  walked  our  long  black  and  hilly  way  into 
the  "two  foot  nine." 

"Child's  play  this  been,  I  tell  'oo,  all  of  it  except  the 
parts  thot  been  constitootional, "  put  in  another;  "but  no 
matter,  when  we  all  do  make  decision  then  we  did  ought 
to  go  together." 

"Aye,  this  coimty  mon  thot  speaks  us  all  so  fair  lawst 
night,  'e  do  go  as  do  all  the  others.  W'y,  once  'e  been  the 
wildest  Red  in  all  the  kentry — in  jail  'e  been,  for  months 
for  cause  of  the  Pandy  riots.  And  now  'e  do  tell  us  to  be 
reasonable  and  constitootional — now  thot  'e  'ave  the  plan 
to  be  an  M.  P.  (Member  Parliament)  and  do  get  'is  ten 
pound  the  week  from  all  on  us."  Thus  some  of  the  leaders 
tried  to  get  back  at  their  cooler-headed  adviser  though 
he  had  got  them  out  of  their  hole  in  what  I  thought  a  very 
considerate  way. 

"While  I  agree  with  the  county  secretary,"  was  the 
genteel  way  Caproni,  the  best  educated  of  the  Bolshevists, 
put  it,  "that  under  ordinary  circumstances  we  should 
keep  to  the  constitution  and  the  law,  I  insist  that  we  are 
now  in  a  state  of  war  with  the  management,  so  that  any- 
thing we  can  think  of  to  embarrass  them  is,  in  a  manner  of 
speaking,  constitutional,  because  in  line  with  our  fixed  and 
determined  pohcy  of  sabotage." 

But  of  course  the  point  of  it  all  is  that  with  the  threat 
of  that  dreadful  2,000  pound  sterling  damages  no  longer 
staring  the  crowd  in  the  face,  the  Bolshies  were  powerless 
to  get  anything  like  the  majority  on  their  side  for  continu- 
ing the  fight.  , 

As  nearly  as  I  can  discover,  after  making  myself  a  living 
question-mark  all  over  the  mine  and  the  town,  just  that  is 
typical  of  the  whole  situation.    Everywhere  the  men  have 


94  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

trotted  out  their  phrases  of  the  ''proletariat,"  "class  con- 
sciousness and  class  discipline,"  "operation  for  public  ser- 
vice and  not  for  private  profit,"  etc.,  etc. — all  with  very 
marked  pride  in  their  manifest  learning.  But  only  a  few 
questions  have  been  needed  to  uncover  in  most  cases  some 
hidden  sense  of  hurt  and  soreness  arising  out  of  some  un- 
pleasant experience  with  the  management,  a  few  months 
or  a  few  years  ago.  In  some  cases  the  experience  had 
happened,  not  to  the  worker  himself  at  all,  but  to  some  one 
close  to  him,  but  nevertheless  was  causing  the  sore  spot  in 
his  own  mind  and  the  squint  in  his  own  view-point.  And 
in  most  of  these  cases  the  present  manager  has  played  a 
part  and  too  often  an  unworthy  part. 

"Well,  mony  the  time  I  'ave  'ad  a  bawd  place,  ye  oonder- 
stand,  awnd  w'en  I  spoke  to  'im  'e'd  only  say  'right  you 
are,  let  it  He ! '  So  for  me  it  was  on  wi'  the  work  or  leave 
the  town." 

"Oh,  aye,  there  be  mony  in  the  town  as  paid  the  twenty- 
one  shillin'  a  month  to  buy  the  'ouse  from  the  company. 
And  on  account  of  no  work,  ye  oonderstand — sometimes 
it  did  used  to  be,  back  in  them  days,  only  six  or  seven  turns 
a  fortnight's  pay — they  do  lose  all  they  pay."  Some- 
thing like  this  would  come  in  rebuttal  of  the  remarkable 
rent  of  company  houses  at  a  pound  a  month  with  sixteen 
hundredweight  of  coal  thrown  in. 

"A  six  months'  strike  we  'ave  just  a  twelvemonth  after 
our  marriage,"  said  Mrs.  Evans.  "Long  time  it  seemed  for 
the  two  of  us  and  this  girl  'ere  now.  Without  the  shop- 
keepers to  carry  us,  I  don't  know  where  we'd  been."  She 
speaks  good  English,  having  been  born  a  "foreigner"  to 
these  parts — that  is,  in  Birmingham.  "As  good  a  man  he 
been  now  as  he  been  bad  before,"  she  whispers  about  her 
husband  as  I  take  opportunity  to  express  my  admiration 
of  her  man.  "And  any  one  in  town  will  tell  you  that  I 
couldn't  say  more  than  that,"  she  adds  with  some  pride 


SALT  FIREMEN  OF  NORTHERN  ENGLAND. 

Workers  everywhere  were  delighted  to  be  "snapped"  in  their  working  togs,  and 
always  offered  tneir  addresses  for  copies.  American  sailors  had  evidently  made  it 
appear  perfectly  proper  for  an  American  worker  to  carry  a  camera. 


( 

■ 

» 
1 

'E  boon  no\v,"  his  wife  said,  "as  good 
a  mon  as  'e  been  bawd  before — awnd 
no  one  could  say  more  than  thot  1' 


'•  Dirty  Dick's  my  name,  but  I'm  not 
dirty-minded." 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  95 

pardonable  in  view'  of  the  report  that  she  is  the  cause  of  her 
man's  enjoying  every  one's  respect  for  the  past  twenty  years 
and  more.  (He  will  come  into  a  pension  of  ten  shilling 
weekly  at  seventy  from  the  government,  added  to  by  the 
company  to  the  extent  of  three  or  five  shillings  weekly 
according  to  his  record  and  standing.) 

Altogether  it  looks  a  good  deal  like  the  Irish  question — 
present  unhappiness  induces  the  searching  of  the  near  and 
distant  past  for  the  fuller  justification  of  its  mood. 

In  the  old  days,  too,  the  constant  fatigue  of  the  long 
hours  of  ripping  a  Hving  from  the  black  face  of  the  coal 
seam  must  undoubtedly  have  helped  to  rub  in  deep  what- 
ever difficulties  the  workers  may  have  had  with  those  about 
them,  whether  in  the  management  or  out.  The  day  cer- 
tainly puts  me  in  a  position  to  believe  that  ''having"  coal 
in  a  deep  mine  is  hard  work.  Any  one  will  beheve  that  who 
will  come  along  and,  after  walking  in  the  two  miles  from 
the  ''bottom,"  take  his  "curlin'  box"  in  hand  and  follow 
after  his  buddy  for  trip  after  trip  from  the  face  to  the  tram, 
never  perhaps  straightening  up  because  of  the  lowness  of 
the  seam,  throwing  the  box  high  upon  the  "rise"  or  built- 
up  sides  of  the  piled-up  tram,  without  daring  to  raise  his 
head  because  of  the  low  stony  "top,"  or  else  carrying  some 
great  lump  carefully  so  as  not  to  spoil  its  possibilities  as  a 
corner  for  the  "rise" — always  in  a  darkness  which  tires  the 
eyes  in  spite  of  the  oil  safety-lamps  and  nearly  always 
in  the  midst  of  a  great  deal  of  coal  dust.  Somehow  all 
this  has  been  much  more  tiring  here  than  in  the  mines  of 
America.  Perhaps  one  reason  is  the  narrower  seam  with 
the  constant  stooping.  Of  course  the  depth  accounts  for 
the  greater  heat,  which  is  quite  noticeable.  The  earth  is  said 
to  grow  hotter  by  one  degree  with  every  fifty  feet  of  depth, 
and  this  mine  is  certainly  not  ventilated  enough  to  offset 
its  distance  down  as  against  the  300  and  400  feet  depths  in 
which  we  worked  last  year.    Outside  the  smell  of  the  coal 


96  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

dust  or  the  gas  to  be  met  with  in  the  "back  passages" 
where  we  worked  last  week,  the  other  distinctive  smell  of 
these  mines  is  undoubtedly  the  smell  you  get  the  moment 
you  come  near  a  miner — sweat,  sweaty  bodies,  and  sweat- 
drenched  clothes. 

This  afternoon  a  young  miner  who  was  sleeping  in  the 
reading-room  of  the  workmen's  institute  or  hall  said  he 
thought  most  of  the  men  were  well  tired  every  day.  It 
is  easy  to  beUeve  that  this  sweat  there  in  the  darkness — 
which,  by  the  way,  with  the  dim  oil  lamps  is  reported  by 
many  to  cause  a  great  deal  of  eye  trouble* — ^helps  make 
the  mineworkers  hard  to  get  on  with  for  the  management. 
To-day  I'll  swear  it  must  also  make  them  hard  to  get  on 
with  in  their  homes. 

This  afternoon  I  had  a  lot  of  sympathy  with  old  William 
Wilhams,  of  the  North — old  and  fat  he  is — as  he  growled 
that  he'd  ''ruther  load  another  dram  o'  coal  than  walk 
these  bloody  miles  down  to  the  bottom."  My  own  back 
and  shoulders  were  aching  because  we  had  started  off  with- 
out stopping  for  a  ''blow"  after  we  had  piled  the  last  tram 
high  in  double-quick  time.  After  my  kitchen  "bathin"' 
and  all  through  my  lonely  meal  here  at  the  house  I  have 
wanted  to  do  some  strenuous  growling  myself,  not  at  the 
baby,  for  the  little  one  seems  to  me  quite  good,  but  at  the 
mother,  who  continues  to-day  her  screams  and  shouts  at 
the  poor  little  tike. 

*'Shut  up !"  she  yells  at  what  seems  very  moderate  baby- 
ish whimperings.  "No,  you  cawn't  'ave  it.  So  there  you 
are!" — followed  a  moment  later  by  the  "Well,  take  it 
and  be  quiet!"  of  despairing  surrender. 

"Baby!  Baby!"  again  a  few  moments  later  as  some- 
thing fresh  is  started.    "Oh,  I  shall  fair  perish  with  you, 

*  This  disease  of  the  eyes,  I  leaxn,  is  called  "nystagmus,"  and  has  been  the 
subject  of  many  investigations  by  royal  commissions.  It  is  practically 
unknown  among  American  miners, 


''BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  97 

you  little  slut!"  (The  woman  is  usually  refined.  It  ap- 
pears that  usages  vary  in  different  parts  of  the  English- 
speaking  world.) 

This  is  what  has  been  wearing  on  me  more  than  any- 
thing else,  coming  as  it  has  on  top  of  the  ache  of  fatigue, 
the  concentration  of  listening  and  recalling  the  conversa- 
tions of  the  day,  and  a  variety  of  other  discomforts.  I  pre- 
sume it  is  this  constant  scrubbing  and  washing  up  which 
is  in  turn  at  the  bottom  of  the  woman's  taking  the  poor 
child  so  hard,  though  something  more  serious  would  seem 
to  be  at  the  back  of  it.  Anyway,  one  thing  is  certain;  no- 
body in  the  town  appears  to  have  quite  such  a  soft  time  as 
some  of  the  papers  make  out,  even  if  the  men  are  for  the 
present  in  no  mood  to  work  as  hard  as  they  used  to — ^and 
are  not  likely  to — until  a  lot  of  obstacles  to  their  better 
understanding  with  the  management  are  cleared  up. 

It  appears  to  me  still  certain,  however,  that  men  gener- 
ally— ^and  miners  particularly — ^prefer  to  work  hard  rather 
than  to  loaf  unless  they  have  for  some  reason  or  other  got 
into  a  "jam"  with  each  other  or  with  the  "gaffers,"  as  they 
call  the  bosses.  To-day  when  we  joined  some  of  Willum's 
old  pals  on  the  way  out,  he  apologized  for  his  puffings  by 
boasting  that:  "Wull,  in  me  day,  I'll  do  any  job  imder- 
ground  wi'  onybody,  bar  none !"  A  moment  later  it  looked 
as  though  there  might  be  blows  between  him  and  another 
old  man  who  was  certain  Willum  couldn't  make  any  show- 
ing in  comparison  with  himself  in  handdriUing  a  powder- 
hole  in  the  roof  "an  inch  and  a  'alf  to  start  and  three  inches 
wide,  oonderstawnd,  two  feet  in."  "Swanking,"  both  of 
them,  I  suppose,  but  they  were  certainly  taking  pleasure 
in  their  workmanship,  even  though  they  tell  me  here  that 
the  best  workers  are  the  last  to  boast  of  it  in  public  be- 
cause of  the  tradition  against  manifest  conceit.  But  at 
least  it  is  a  reassuring  sign  when,  in  such  an  upset  situation 
as  this,  old  men  will  refrain  from  their  sabotage  long  enough 


98  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

to  boast  of  their  prowess  as  workers — even  if  they  have  to 
go  back  into  the  past  to  get  their  basis  for  it. 

Well,  it  is  a  reUef  to  have  no  crier  for  a  "General  Meet- 
ing!" this  evening.  I  must  say  the  man  does  his  job  with 
as  good  a  voice  and  enmiciation  as  could  be  hoj>ed  for. 
"A  sovereign  a  time  'e  gets  for  it.  Not  bad,  is  it?"  says 
my  weary  landlady. 

So  I  guess  I  can  go  over  for  a  cup  of  tea  with  the  profes- 
sor who  is  responsible  for  my  being  here — a  fine  man  he 
is  in  every  way,  and  most  learned  with  regard  to  coal  and 
many  other  matters. 

Friday,  July  23, 
Rhonda  Coal  Fields. 

The  biggest  impression  of  the  day — next  to  my  aching 
arms  and  shoulder-blades — is  of  mud  and  rain.  When  I 
asked  one  of  the  miners — they  are  calling  me  CharUe  very 
famiharly  now — the  why  of  the  fearful  mud  of  the  yard 
about  the  pit-head  he  exploded: 

"Seven  deputations  we  have  had  on  this  bloody  mud — 
and  only  been  insulted  for  our  pains.  I  tell  you,  you  can't 
get  nothing  here  except  by  force — ^and  this  week  proves  it." 

"Five  times  I've  been  to  them  on  the  deputations," 
said  black-haired  Caproni.  "Each  time  they've  told  us  it 
was  well  irrigated  by  nature, — ^and  ended  by  asking  me 
why  I  kept  making  niischief.  The  thing  they  can  never 
understand,  these  masters,  is  that  we  agitators  cannot 
possibly  make  mischief.  All  we  can  do  is  to  call  attention 
to  it  when  they  themseloes  furnish  us  with  it!" 

Such  words  are  exactly  in  line  with  my  earlier  belief  that 
an  agitator  is  "a  man  who  earns  his  salt  by  rubbing  it 
into  the  sore  spots  which  the  rest  of  us  allow  to  exist  on 
our  body  pohtic — or  industrial."  I  hope,  however,  that  the 
man  was  wrong  when  he  continued:  "Yes,  we  are  back  at 
work  again — ^and  I  think  we  owe  it  to  the  man  who  threw 
the  brick  through  the  agent's  window.    The  only  language 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  99 

they  can  understand,  these  owners,  is  the  language  of  force 
and  violence,  else  why  did  they  issue  the  summons  in  the 
j&rst  place?" 

I  "dunno"  what  the  answer  is,  but  I  am  mighty  sure 
that  the  fellow  is  no  fool.  He  told  me  this  morning  he  had 
been  working  hard  for  a  hving  since  he  was  nine.  That, 
in  addition  to  his  illegitimacy,  would  make  him  resemble 
most  agitators,  in  having  been  pinched  severely  in  ''the 
fell  clutch  of  circumstance."  It  is  pretty  certain  that  he 
would  be  very  glad  if  the  coming  ballot  would  defeat 
the  effort  to  raise  the  dues  of  membership  in  the  Miners 
Federation  of  Great  Britain  to  a  shilling  weekly.  This 
would  set  the  Welsh  miners  free  to  run  themselves — ^with 
their  more  radical  leadership  in  control.  They  would  also 
be  free  to  get  a  higher  daily  wage  than  other  miners  if  they 
insisted  on  the  local  pre-war  arrangement  whereby  wages 
went  up  or  down  with  the  selling  price  of  coal,  an  arrange- 
ment very  advantageous  now  to  the  Welsh,  who  mine  most 
of  the  high-priced  export  coal.  Such  separation  would 
be  a  blow  in  the  back  to  the  "M.F.G.B."  now  that  it  has 
recently  voted  to  demand  of  the  government  the  rescind- 
ing of  the  fourteen  shillings  twopence  allowed  the  coal 
producer  and  seller  on  every  ton  of  coal  for  British  use  and 
the  addition  of  two  shilHngs  per  day  to  the  wages  of  all 
miners — besides  threatening  to  "down  tools"  if  this  is  not 
granted.  In  addition,  the  same  conference  stated  that  it 
will  pay  no  attention  whatever  to  the  law  in  case  the 
government  passes  the  proposed  Mines  Act  for  setting  up 
joint  management  and  workers'  committees  and  for  regu- 
lating wages  and  other  conditions  according  to  areas,  thus 
getting  away  from  the  need  of  deaUng  with  the  national 
union. 

At  the  face  the  day  passed  quite  quickly  and  with  a  lot 
of  work  done  because  old  Willmn  goes  to-night  on  a  "  'oli- 
day."    So  far  he  has  not  given  me  a  chance  at  a  pick. 


100  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

He's  not  to  blame  so  much  for  that,  if  I  am  right  in  ob- 
serving that  a  greenhorn  might  easily  get  in  great  danger 
by  loosening  more  of  the  great  coal  chff  than  he  bargained 
for.  But  though  he  believes  in  teaching  only  by  the  method 
of  "watch  me,  thot's  the  best  ye  cawn  do,"  he  is  at  least 
always  hard  on  the  job  of  looking  out  for  my  safety. 

That's  not  a  good  subject  to  write  about  from  day  to 
day  because  it  isn't  wise  to  speak  too  soon — at  least  it 
would  not  seem  so  in  this  district  where  every  day's  paper 
has  a  head-line  or  two  hke  yesterday's  "ENTOMBED 
10  HOURS!"  or  ''Merthyr  Haulier's  Death  Mystery.'' 
But  I  guess  I'm  near  enough  through  to  thank  the  old 
man  for  his  call  to  me  to-day,  for  instance,  with  his  kindly 
"Go  you  now  away  from  a-'elpin'  o'  them  drillers.  Bad 
roof  it  is — dangerous  even  for  them  wi'  experience,"  as 
also  for  his  earher  injunctions  to  "Alius  keep  your  cap  on: 
ye  nae  can  tell." 

As  we  have  walked  out  the  miles  to  the  bottom  together 
the  men  have  been  quick  to  yell  to  me  when  the  trains  or 
"journeys"  ("trips"  in  American  mines)  have  come  thundeiv 
ing  along  in  the  black  headings: 

"Into  the  manhole!  Quick  wi'  ye!'*  followed,  perhaps, 
by  "Like  the  'Irish  Mail'  they  do  coom.  .  .  .  The  coort 
will  be  decidin'  to-morrow  whether  Jack  Jones  gets  dam- 
ages for  bein'  'wcted  even  w'en  'e  wuz  in  one  o'  them  bloody 
man'oles."  (Young  Sanders  tells  with  great  rehsh  of  the 
miner  on  a  spree  in  Cardiff  who  saw  a  group  of  West  Indian 
negroes  approaching  and  called  to  his  chiun:  "Quick,  Jock, 
'ere  cooms  a  journey  o'  coal !    Into  the  monhole  wi'  ye ! ") 

The  professor  says  that  the  same  roof  which  permits 
the  "long  wall"  system  here  also  furnishes  greater  danger 
than  anywhere  in  the  British  Isles — "and  so  requires  more 
inteUigent  workmen,"  which  hardly  includes  me!  The 
wire  "ropes,"  he  also  says,  constitute  another  factor  of 
great  danger  and  walking  near  them  when  in  action  is  for- 


"BACK  TO  ^UE  MINES!"  101 

bidden  by  law.  I  will  confess  they  have  frightened  me 
with  their  roar  just  above  my  head  in  the  darkness. 
But  the  men  pay  no  attention  to  them  and  walk  out  when 
they  are  in  action.  The  observance  of  the  law  would  make 
them  wait  till  the  end  of  the  shift  in  the  unlighted  places 
quite  distant  from  the  shaft.  As  it  is,  they  Une  up  by 
the  hundreds  a  good  half-hour  before  the  hoist  stops  tak- 
ing up  the  loaded  trams  of  coal — in  spite  of  all  the  manage- 
ment can  do  to  get  them  to  give  a  better  day's  work. 
With  the  trams  of  coal  finally  brought  to  the  shaft  and 
then  "caged  up"  to  the  surface,  we  line  up  for  our  turn  at 
the  cage,  after  braving  the  whirrings  of  the  ropes  at  one 
spot  and  pausing  to  listen  for  any  further  doings  in  the 
"top"  at  some  point  where  rock  has  fallen  on  the  tracks 
within  the  previous  haK-hour.  Then  I  notice  the  colliers 
— the  real  getters  of  coal — taking  a  certain  amount  of  pre- 
cedence over  the  hauliers  and  us  day  men — ^as  becomes 
those  whom,  in  a  sense,  all  the  others  of  us  serve.  I  wonder 
if  that  is  likely  to  continue  in  case  the  Bolshies  bring  about 
the  extinction  of  piece-work,  for  that  will  make  the  collier's 
earnings  no  longer  larger  than  the  others. 

In  a  mine  it  is  impossible  to  imagine  anything  like  the 
constant  supervision  over  the  efifort  of  the  workers  from 
hour  to  hour  which  is  rehed  upon  in  many  factories  to  make 
up  for  the  urging  which  is  suppUed  ordinarily  by  piece  rates. 
In  a  coal-mine  everybody  is  working  more  or  less  by  him- 
self, with  the  five  or  six  hundred  workers  who  use  the  same 
shaft  spread  over  several  miles  of  territory.  If  he  wants 
to,  a  man  can  spend  the  whole  day  hardly  turning  a 
hand — and  then  frame  some  excuse  to  the  over-man  later. 
This  same  difiiculty  is  also  at  the  bottom  of  the  trouble 
with  piece  rate  or  tonnage;  they  call  it  here  "payment 
by  results."  In  the  old  days,  it  appears,  the  "master"  had 
only  a  few  workers  and  could  easily  take  a  look  at  the  face 
of  the  coal  seam  when  a  man  complained  that  it  was  re- 


102  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

quiring  more  than  proper  effort  to  earn  a  fair  weekly  pay. 
The  master  knew  his  man  and  his  man  knew  him.  If  it  was 
agreed  that  the  location  was  bad  the  man  would  be  allowed 
to  "work  on  the  con" — that  is,  be  given  special  considera- 
tion for  his  unsatisfactory  place.  When  the  mine  grew  too 
big  to  permit  such  relationships,  a  foreman  or  "gaffer"  had 
to  make  the  decision  and  the  old  face-to-face  relationship 
was  ending  and  industrial  troubles  were  beginning.*  There 
were  many  instances  of  managerial  tyranny.  This  finally 
brought  the  union's  demand — the  miners'  union  began  as 
early  as  1841 — for  the  recognition  of  "abnormal"  places. 
There  is  always  much  difficulty  in  agreeing  just  when  a 
place  is  really  abnormal,  for  when  a  place  goes  harder  than 
usual  the  miner  is  often  apt  to  do  considerably  less  than 
his  best  in  order  to  make  his  case  as  good  as  possible. 
Now,  after  years  of  the  unsatisfactoriness  following  on  that 
real  difficulty,  the  minimum  wage  has  been  put  into  opera- 
tion. Theoretically  it  was  to  take  care  only  of  the  worker 
who  has  an  "abnormal"  place,  but  at  the  present  moment 
it  is  being  taken  advantage  of  as  a  payment,  not  for  those 
who  have  bad  places,  but  for  any  who  do  not  care  to  work ! 
Also  by  the  Bolshies  who  claim  that  it  can't  be  right  for 
the  fortunate  man  to  put  himself  above  a  brother  worker 
who  may  be  working  harder  than  he  in  some  less  remuner- 
ative location. 

The  question  I  am  anxious  to  ask  the  heads  of  the  miners' 
union  is  whether  they  believe  the  miner  can  be  relied  upon, 
under  either  private  or  public  operation,  to  give,  without 
the  spur  of  payment  by  results,  enough  coal  in  a  day's 
work  to  hold  the  circle  of  British  industry  together.  Unless 
something  can  be  found  to  get  better  relations  than  at  pres- 

*The  assignment  of  the  location  by  the  superintendent  can,  of  course, 
make  or  break  a  miner.  The  way  is  therefore  open  to  the  playing  of  favor- 
ites or  the  venting  of  spites,  as  also,  sometimes,  the  purchasing  of  the  virtue 
of  the  miner's  wife. 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  103 

ent,  I  don't  see  how  it  can  be  done.  Why  any  one  should 
suppose  that  the  presence  of  miners'  representatives  on  the 
National  Board  of  Control  would  make  government  opera- 
tion much  more  efficient  than  now  in  the  "phones"  and 
telegraph  I  cannot  understand.  The  sad  thing  is,  that  as  in 
the  case  of  the  union's  check — ^weighman  in  America  or  the 
coimty  union  official  here — these  "high  up"  representatives 
become  distrusted  by  the  rank  and  file,  as  soon  as  they 
begin  to  react  to  their  responsibiUties,  by  growing  conser- 
vative. 

I  am  more  than  ever  convinced  to-night  that  "there's  a 
reason"  behind  even  the  strangest  ideas  and  actions  of  our 
fellow  humans.  When  understood,  this  reason  makes  the 
conduct  of  any  one  of  us  about  as  logical  as  that  of  any 
other  of  us.  A  London  alienist.  Dr.  Hart,  shows  for  in- 
stance how  the  behavior  of  the  insane  is  perfectly  reasoned 
and  logical,  granting  only  the  reasonableness  of  just  one 
tiny  idea  or  conception  which  for  some  definite  reason  gets 
itself  into  the  patient's  train  of  thought  and  so  proceeds  to 
provide  a  perfectly  logical  cause  of  all  the  others  that  follow. 
To-night  I  feel  as  though  I  had  found  the  reason  for  my  fret- 
ful landlady.  As  a  result  of  that  diagnosis  which  is  always 
the  biggest  step  toward  cure,  I  have  tried  my  best  to  help 
her  avoid  the  tragedy  which  looms  ahead  of  her  and  her 
family. 

"Ah,  it's  tired  I  am  all  the  time  now — ^and  not  carin' 
— except  to  die."  So  she  has  explained,  perhaps  realizing 
the  strain  of  her  shoutings  at  the  baby,  though  she  is  prob- 
ably quite  unconscious  of  the  multitude  of  times  I  have 
heard  her  repeating  "  Oh  dear !  Oh  dear ! "  under  her  breath 
with  the  deepest  of  sighs,  as  she  served  my  everlasting 
bacon  and  eggs  in  the  morning. 

"Often  and  often  John  says:  'Shan't  we  go  out  as  we 
used  to?'  But  never  do  I  'ave  the  courage.  So  it  'as  been 
ever  since  the  twins  came — after  eight  years  with  no  child 


104  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

at  all.  .  .  .  Hours  and  hours  I  sit  by  the  stove  'ere  and 
cry  and  cry — cry  me  eyes  out — and  never  for  no  reason 
at  all.  Yes,  it  was  a  bye  we  wanted  and  when  both  'e  and 
the  girl  come,  we  was  the  'appiest  in  the  world.  But  I  do  be 
thinkin'  it  was  too  good.  .  .  .  'Twas  a  Sunday  night  I 
noticed  first.  All  night  I  sat  up  with  'im  in  me  arms. 
And  on  Tuesday  'e  was  dead.  .  .  .  Per'aps  some  time 
'twill  be  another — and  a  bye.  But  per'aps  I'll  be  dead 
then,  too,  I'm  sure  I  don't  care — I'm  too  tired  out  to  care. 
Never  a  day  'ave  I  enjoyed  life  since  they  were  bom — 
and  not  because  I  'aven't  loved  them.  ...  I  don't  know 
why.  The  doctor  says  I  just  need  a  rest,  but  you  can  see 
there's  none  of  that  'ere — with  the  dirt  and  all." 

As  she  talked  I  felt  sorry  for  the  times  these  last  few 
days  when  I  had  leaned  wearily  on  the  edge  of  the  kitchen 
"bosh,"  or  porcelain  sink,  preparatory  to  the  "bathin" 
after  the  day  in  the  pit,  and  wanted  to  scream  when  the 
mildest  kittens  would  let  out  the  mildest  feline  inquiries 
and  appeals — and  felt  positively  relieved,  a  moment  later, 
that  the  wife  had  herself  yelled  to  the  poor  pussy:  "Oh  you 
shut  up!"  For  her  to  yell  seemed  somehow  to  relieve  me 
of  the  strain. 

It  is  perfectly  plain  that  in  the  course  of  a  year  or  two 
the  ambitious  husband  will  begin  to  be  more  conscious  of 
the  unsatisfactoriness  of  his  once  handsome  wife  (so  I 
judge  from  her  pictiire)  and  begin  to  sigh  for  some  more 
sympathetic  companion.  She  is  already,  of  course,  visit- 
ing on  him  her  bad  temper — or,  at  least,  her  imhappy  mood 
following  from  this  continual  weariness.  It  hardly  seems 
too  much  to  say  that  what  was  an  attractive  and  happy 
young  married  woman  less  than  two  years  ago  is  becoming 
at  this  moment,  before  the  eyes  of  her  husband  and  friends, 
a  very  shrew.  I  have  urged  a  specialist,  with  all  my  might, 
but  both  that  and  the  rest  prescribed  by  the  local  doctor 
are  apparently  equally  unlikely. 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  105 

At  least  I*m  glad  I  did  hold  my  temper  this  afternoon 
and  the  other  times  when  I  have  wanted  to  make  some 
sort  of  a  nasty  "come-back,"  not  to  the  whimpering  baby 
but  to  its  troubled  mother. 

By  George,  but  this  combination  of  body  and  soul  into 
what  we  call  a  person  is  an  interesting  matter!  It  does 
look  as  though  we  ought  to  give  more  study  to  this  com- 
bination than  we  have  yet  given  if  we  are  going  to  find 
ways  of  helping  it  into  better  and  nobler  living.  And  the 
start  of  all  that  would  appear  to  be,  for  all  of  us  who  have 
to  deal  with  other  humans,  whether  in  small  groups  or 
great,  to  hang  upon  the  walls  of  our  minds  the  legend 
"There's  a  reason!" 

It's  bedtime  even  though  it  is  still  fairly  light.  Like 
most  other  nights  here,  apparently,  it  is  raining  and  cold 
— with  a  continuous  new  supply  of  rain  clouds  blowing 
over  the  moimtains  at  the  top  valley  and  down  right  into 
the  town.  The  only  living  things  that  appear  to  like  the 
constant  chill  and  mud  are  the  numerous  flock  of  dirty 
gray  geese  that  noisily  parade  the  streets  and  alleys.  A 
perfect  picture  of  misery  is  made  by  the  piteously  bleating 
sheep  and  lambs  that  wander  forlornly  from  one  garbage 
pile  to  the  other  about  the  place  at  all  hours  of  the  day 
and  night.  Just  outside  the  window  now  some  lonely  wool- 
clad  yoimgster — ^born  into  the  world  merely  to  furnish  a 
reason  for  his  due  portion  of  mint  sauce! — is  ma-a-ing 
piteously  in  a  voice  amazingly  like  a  boy  soprano's.  The 
poor  thing  evidently  feels  as  far  from  its  friends  as  a  certain 
other  person  who  could  be  named ! 

Rhondda  Region, 
Sunday,  July  25. 

Thanks  to  my  good  friend  the  professor,  have  had  a 
wonderful  ride  in  a  motor  all  over  this  southeastern  part 
of  Wales.  Beautiful  country  it  is,  too.  With  him  was  one 
of  the  company  officials  and  owners  here,  a  man  who  has 


106  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

lived  all  his  life  in  this  town  and  has  gone  from  the  bottom 
to  the  head  of  one  of  the  country's  most  successful  collier- 
ies. To  take  the  drive  without  being  observed  by  my 
buddies  it  was  necessary  to  stay  out  of  the  pit  Saturday 
and  join  them  a  httle  outside  the  town. 

Among  other  places  we  saw  the  only  pit-head  shower  baths 
in  Wales — in  full  operation  on  husky,  coal-black  bodies 
which  certainly  looked  as  though  they  needed  them.  Un- 
fortunately the  capacity  of  the  building  does  not  permit 
serving  more  than  a  third  of  the  workers — due  mainly  to 
the  shortage  of  room  for  the  clothes,  which  are  hung  upon 
hooks  and  then  drawn  up  for  drying  in  the  warm  air  near 
the  ceiling.  Was  glad  to  be  told  by  some  of  the  "bath-ers" 
— om:  "bathers"  is  a  word  which  refers  only  to  those  who 
are  taking  a  sea  or  river  bath,  or  as  the  saying  here  is,  a 
sea  or  river  " bathe' ^ — that  many  more  would  like  to  use 
the  accommodations  if  they  could,  although  there  are  still 
many  who  are  afraid  of  taking  cold. 

At  all  the  other  coUieries  of  the  company  the  officials 
were  quite  discouraged  with  the  attitude  of  the  workers: 

"What  can  we  do  when  a  dozen  men  refuse  to  work 
Sunday  for  the  repairing  of  the  sheaves?"  [The  sheaves 
are  the  pair  of  wheels  always  visible  at  the  top  of  a  mine 
tipple,  serving  as  pulleys  for  the  wire  cables  which  run  from 
the  winding  drum  inside  the  engine-house,  down  into  the 
shaft.]  "  By  that  they  make  it  necessary  for  five  hundred 
of  their  companions  to  lose  two  eight-hour  shifts!  .  .  . 
More  machinery?  Yes,  but  the  men  wiU  refuse  to  work 
with  the  machine  for  imdercutting  the  coal.  That  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  actual  experience  has  shown  that  the  col- 
Hers  earn  more  with  the  help  of  it  wherever  its  use  is  practi- 
cable!" 

The  tour  only  emphasized  the  impression,  gained  ear- 
lier from  the  train  through  this  district,  that  the  housing 
conditions  are  much  better  than  would  easily  be  found  iii 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  107 

an  American  colliery  area.  All  the  houses  are  closely  built 
of  brick  and  stone.  Except  for  a  few  bad  back  streets 
they  are  quite  fairly  attractive  and  all  seem  to  have  some 
sort  of  indoor  plumbing.  For  miles  and  miles  we  were 
scarcely  out  of  sight  of  one  of  the  well-built  and  bustling 
mine  towns. 

"Most  of  the  houses  we  are  renting  to  our  officials  and 
workers  were  built,"  says  the  head  official,  "nearly  fifty 
years  ago  and  represented  an  investment  of  only  sixty  or 
eighty  pounds  each.  That's  why  we  can  rent  them  so 
cheaply.  .  .  .  Over  1,500  of  our  5,000  men  own  their  own 
homes  and  some  2,000  of  them  have  been  with  us  as  much 
as  twenty-five  years  or  more." 

Whether  the  men  or  the  managers  are  to  blame,  the  con- 
ditions of  work  inside  the  mine  seem  to  me  less  attractive 
here  than  in  the  mines  I  saw  in  America.  The  managers 
here  are  said  to  be  quite  slow  to  adopt  either  the  mechan- 
ical conveyors  used  at  the  face  on  the  long-wall  system  in 
many  mines,  or  the  water  system  for  packing  the  muck  into 
the  goaf  or  gob  for  the  later  support  of  the  mine  roof.  Of 
course  the  better  this  is  packed  the  less  material  has  to  be 
taken  up  and  out  onto  the  diunps,  which  not  only  represent 
costly  handling  but  also  everywhere  disfigure  the  hand- 
some landscape.  Also  the  less  the  countryside  is  bothered 
by  the  subsidence  of  the  ground  when  the  timber  supports 
give  way.  You  certainly  get  an  impression  of  the  age  of 
the  coal  industry  here  when  you  see  the  hugeness  of  some 
of  these  dumps — also  when  you  see  the  old  upright  engines 
which  still  operate  at  some  of  the  pits  with  a  conical  drum. 
This  was  an  old  attempt  to  give  maximum  pulling  power 
on  the  cage  when  at  the  bottom,  and  maximum  speed  when 
the  cage  is  just  descending  from  the  top. 

My  two  companions  have  certainly  shown  me  every 
imaginable  courtesy.  More  hospitable  or  friendly  people 
— more  Christian  in  every  way — could  not  be  thought  of. 


108  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

They  are  sorry  there  is  not  time  to  get  acquainted  with 
"the  back-bone  of  the  Rhondda" — the  miners  who  are 
beyond  middle  age,  own  their  own  homes,  never  drink, 
seldom  go  to  the  imion  meetings,  and  never  absent  them- 
selves from  the  chapels  or  the  churches.  They  agree, 
however,  that  something  like  a  year's  sojourn  would  be 
required  to  get  close  to  them — ^also  that  during  last  week 
these  in  our  town  and  at  our  pit  accepted  the  leadership 
of  the  Bolshies.  Still  they  contend  that  very  few  of  this 
old  type  work  in  that  particular  pit,  partly  because  the 
living  conditions  I  have  thought  so  good  are  much  worse 
than  those  in  the  other  part  of  the  town. 

But  I  am  quite  willing  to  agree  with  them  that  the  typi- 
cal Welsh  miner  is  a  mighty  fine  citizen,  anxious  to  do  the 
right  and  play  fair  as  he  is  able  to  see  fairness.  I  am  pos- 
itively blue  at  the  thought  of  saying  good-by  to-morrow 
or  next  day  to  some  of  the  good  friends  I  have  made  here, 
including  particularly  the  professor  and  his  dear  wife,  the 
official,  then  "the  boss"  of  that  first  forlorn  and  home- 
sick night  among  these  great  hills  and  by  no  means  the 
last,  the  repairer  and  his  wife.  These  folks  of  the  valley, 
whether  high  or  humble,  are  not  ashamed  to  show  their 
friendly  feelings — that's  sure.  Big-handed  and  big-hearted 
men  they  seem  to  be,  with  a  strain  of  sentiment  that  has 
to  have,  I  judge,  the  additional  outlet  of  Welsh  poetry 
and  song.  The  authors  of  some  of  the  poetry  appearing 
in  the  local  papers  are  often  very  humble  miners.  A  male 
chorus  from  the  local  colHeries  here  once  got  the  national 
prize,  sang  before  the  Queen,  toured  America,  and  so  on. 
They  think  rather  badly  of  our  American  taste  when  some 
second-rater  here  goes  out  to  us  and  in  a  few  years  writes 
back  that  he  is  at  the  head  of  musical  interests  in  some 
Middle  Western  or  Eastern  town !  Cleaner  of  speech  they 
all  are,  too,  than  most  American  workers  as  I  have  seen 
them. 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  109 

Most  of  these  men  seem  to  me  worthy,  I  must  say,  of 
those  words  the  wife  said  of  ''the  boss"  that  first  day  here: 
"He  would  do  good  to  all  men  that  'e  do  know,  'e  would." 
It  was  when  we  were  looking  at  the  chromos  of  the  family 
in  the  sacred — ^and  unused — parlor  there  in  what  the  men 
called  "Gaffer's  Row"  of  company  officials'  houses.  Sacred 
the  parlor  really  is  in  that  house  because  it  shows  the  faces 
of  the  two  children — the  boy  of  seventeen  and  the  girl  of 
twenty-one — who  had  died  within  the  last  year  or  two. 
"Ah,  when  the  bye  went  it  fair  knocked  the  boss.  Ever 
since  thot  'e  been  gettin'  old  fast." 

But  even  she  is  puzzled  by  the  times  and  the  spirit  grow- 
ing up  around  them — ^as  doubtless  are  a  great  many  of 
the  fine  old  type. 

"More  wickedness  there  is  now  than  before,  I  don't 
know  why.  Oh,  aye,  they  bet  on  the  'orses  and  on  every- 
thing else — like  the  nrnnber  o'  the  next  tram  thot  coomes. 
They  even  bet  on  what  the  minister's  text  will  be — ^and 
then  even  on  the  number  o'  the  'ymns!  Awnd  why  they 
been  so  restless  and  trouble-makin'  I'm  fair  put  to  it  to 
know." 

Her  puzzlement  is  pretty  much  my  own  at  this  moment. 
Whether  they  are  numerous  or  not,  the  more  radical  work- 
ers undoubtedly  do  have  a  lot  of  influence  in  this  whole 
neighborhood.  Every  day's  conversations  make  it  plainer 
that  in  this  particular  pit  they  are  clever  enough  to  make 
use  of  the  unfortunate  experiences  most  of  them  appear 
to  have  had  with  that  same  agent  or  superintendent  earlier 
mentioned.  Elsewhere  in  the  district  something  else  must 
be  found  to  account  for  the  spirit  of  unrest  so  general  in 
South  Wales  and  especially  in  the  South  Wales  coal-fields. 
It  can  hardly  be  simply  the  black  past  of  two  generations 
ago  in  mining  in  general,  because  that  would  be  equally 
true  for  the  fields  in  the  Enghsh  Midlands,  reported  much 
more  conservativct    It  may  be  that,  as  one  of  the  rev- 


110  FULL  UP  AND   FED  UP 

olutionists  suggested  the  other  day,  these  mountains  tie 
everybody  to  a  very  nai-row  groove  and  make  the  local 
miner  less  open  to  the  currents  of  national  and  international 
interest  which  are  evidently  blowing  on  the  faces  of  the 
miners  of  England. 

One  thing  I  have  noticed — ^that  to  most  of  the  radicals 
the  whole  thing  seems  to  have  that  deUghtful  simplicity 
which  appears  only  to  the  eye  of  the  ignorant.  As  we  came 
out  of  the  pit  the  other  morning,  the  same  chap  who  had 
told  how  the  Russians  had  ''got  educated  since  the  war, 
so  why  shouldn't  we?" — all,  be  it  ob  erved,  in  the  twin- 
kling of  an  eye! — went  on  very  knowingly  to  show  how 
simple  the  whole  change  was  here: 

"You  see,  afore  the  war  we  used  to  earn  our  Uvin'  by 
'ere"  (pointing  to  his  arm),  "but  now  we  does  it  by  'ere!" 
(with,  a  very  impressive  finger  to  his  head !) 

He  is  the  same  one  who  is  perfectly  sure  that  the  larger 
use  of  coke  and  its  by-products  is  giving  the  operators 
even  larger  profits  than  before.  Evidently  he  has  not  the 
faintest  idea  that  not  all  coals  are  cokable  and  very  few 
from  this  region.  In  short,  his  arguments  are  those  of  a 
man  who  has  been  primed  by  leaders  and  teachers  who 
evidently  talked  now  about  the  present,  now  about  the  past, 
and  again  about  the  future  without  telling  him  when  they 
were  shifting  gears  from  one  into  the  other.  The  one  sure 
thing  is  that  he  is  greatly  impressed  with  his  information, 
though  he  has  constantly  to  refer  to  his  "teachers"  for  the 
exact  details:  "They'll  tell  ye  the  exact  number  o'  milUons 
o'  profit.     I  cawn't  recall  'em." 

All  of  which  makes  me  wish  that  the  employers  would 
think  more  about  education  and  less  about  force  as  the  way 
out  and  over  the  present  misunderstanding.  In  view  of  all 
that  has  already  happened,  however,  it  isn't  strange  that 
neither  side  feels  like  stopping  the  fight. 

"We  have  to  decide,"  said  a  high  official,  "whether  w« 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  Ill 

will  give  in  to  the  men  and  give  over  all  thought  of  manage- 
ment— and  profit — or,  on  the  contrary,  make  a  fight  for 
every  inch.  The  slightest  show  of  good-will  is  taken  either 
as  a  surrender  to  their  superior  force  or  as  some  sham  for 
getting  them  into  our  toils.  'If  the  management  proposes 
it,  it  must  be  bad  for  us !'  they  say — ^as,  for  instance,  when 
we  proposed  to  make  a  gift  toward  the  hospital.  It's  now 
going  up  over  there — some  six  years  after  they  first  started 
fighting  it." 

A  moment  later  my  heart  sank  as  he  continued:  "ilnd 
when  things  cool  off  a  hit  we'll  summon  them  all  for  damages 
for  those  missed  days  this  past  week." 

When  I  made  bold  to  suggest  that  they  require  their 
trouble-making  official  to  restrict  himself  to  the  duties  of 
his  recent  promotion  and  put  more  authority  to  deal  with 
the  men  onto  his  subordinates,  the  answer  was  discouraging: 
"But  no  one  can  possibly  know  the  men  or  be  more  sym- 
pathetic with  them  than  he;  for  he  used  to  he  one  of  them!" 
(Which  isn't  necessarily  true  at  all,  and  is  often  the  re- 
verse.) Then  he  went  on:  "And  besides  many  of  our  sub- 
ordinate officials  we  can't  trust — ^not  so  much  as  we  can 
many  of  our  workers !" 

'Twould  appear  that  the  chief  factor  in  the  trouble — 
if  any  of  my  "Big  Four"  are  here — is  not  to  be  found  in 
the  unsteady  job.  Ordinarily  the  mines  run  very  regularly, 
so  I'm  told.  Car  supply  is  so  good  that  if  a  mine  stops  on 
that  account  it  is  wired  all  over  the  coimtry.  "Tiredness 
and  temper  from  bad  working  or  living  conditions"  is  hardly 
a  main  cause  of  the  local  trouble,  though  it  helps.  The 
mental  factor  of  misunderstanding  certainly  figures  con- 
siderably in  spite  of  the  fact  that  these  men  and  managers 
have  all  grown  up  together.  For  the  local  problem,  at  least, 
it  appears  evident  that  the  chief  trouble  is  caused  by  the 
men's  feeling  that  the  agent  and  their  self-respect  cannot 
get  on  together;  at  least  that  feeling  is  evidently  giving  the 


1 


112  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Bolshies  their  handle  and,  judging  from  the  attitude  of 
my  official  friend,  is  likely  to  continue  to  do  so  for  some  time. 

Altogether  it  looks  pretty  hopeless — especially  consider- 
ing that  the  Bolshies  will  probably  do  their  utmost  to  keep 
the  management  from  taking  the  game  out  of  their  hands 
by  any  efiforts,  to  get  into  good  relations  with  the  men. 

Meanwhile,  partly  because  of  this  situation  and  partly 
because  of  the  government's  effort  to  restrict  the  export- 
ing of  coal,  ships  cannot  ''bunker"  nor  find  return  cargoes 
after  bringing  in  from  France  the  pit  timber  for  the  mines 
or  from  Spain  the  iron  for  the  mills.  This  increases  freight 
rates  and  thus  raises  the  cost  of  Hving.  The  same  England 
that  used  to  export  coal  all  over  the  world  is  getting  it  now 
from  Africa,  the  United  States,  and  even  from  Australia, 
12,000  miles  away — with  China  waking  up  and  breaking  in- 
to things  with  the  newly  arranged  delivery  of  100,000  tons 
of  the  black  fuel  at  Marseilles  and  10,000  tons  sold  to  the 
Danish  state  railways!  It  looks  as  though  England's 
*'key  commodity"  was  in  a  bad  way.  Mention  is  often 
made  of  the  amount  of  coal  we  have  in  America  that  can 
be  worked  by  the  steam  shovels  in  our  open-pit  mines,  yet 
it  does  seem  odd  that  our  tons  per  man  per  year  should  be 
so  much  more  than  they  are  here — with  our  735,000  miners 
getting  out  something  like  700,000,000  tons  against  Great 
Britain's  1,200,000  miners  getting  only  about  230,000,000 
tons!  And  on  top  of  that,  there  is  a  serious  possibility 
that  a  strike  of  all  the  miners  here  will  be  declared  before 
the  end  of  August !  Also  a  six-hour  day  instead  of  seven 
comes,  I  understand,  into  effect  automatically  next  summer ! 
With  the  seven-hour  day  220,000  miners  here  in  Wales 
have  produced  a  milhon  tons  less  than  207,000  miners 
produced  last  year  on  an  eight-hour  day. 

If  the  present  feeUng  here  against  piece-work  or  tonnage 
payment  gets  its  way,  the  whole  industry  as  I  see  it  will 
commit  hari-kari — ^with  its  pick  and  shovel  as  it  were. 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  113 

And,  as  I  see  it,  little  enough  salvation  is  to  be  expected 
from  government  operation,  too  many  workers  are  expect- 
ing to  go  easy  and  ''tike  no  chawnces"  then.  If  the  leaders 
play  into  the  hands  of  the  Bolshevists  by  working  for  this 
flat-day  rate,  the  dispute  will  be  quieter  but  the  mines  will 
be  duller.  In  any  event,  it  is  certainly  urgent  that  some 
means  be  taken  to  get  the  men  into  a  better  mood.  Per- 
haps one  way  would  be  for  the  government  to  call  a  con- 
ference and  while  it  asks  the  men  to  give  a  better  day's 
work,  ask  the  owners  to  take  steps  to  improve  their  methods 
of  operation.  This  latter,  however,  would  probably  meet 
the  opposition  of  the  great  mass  of  workers.  They  appear 
pretty  generally  to  believe  that  every  man  bom  in  a  mine 
town  has  a  more  or  less  inalienable  right  to  a  miner's  job 
and  the  enjoyment  of  a  miner's  full  year's  pay,  even  if 
machinery  might  get  the  work  done  with  only  four  or  five 
days'  work  each  week.  It  would  also  get  slight  favor  from 
the  operators.  Naturally  they  feel  skittish  about  investing 
millions  in  equipment  with  the  sword  of  nationalization 
hanging  over  their  heads.  So,  as  everybody  over  here  says 
in  a  pinch,  "And  there  you  a'y!"  Which,  being  inter- 
preted, means  "And  there  you  aren't!" 

'Twill  be  fine  to  see  the  English  coal-fields  and  the  feel- 
ings of  the  men  that  work  them. 

A  fellow  can't  live  in  this  district — or  for  that  matter  in 
Britain  anywhere,  without  getting  coal  pretty  deep  into 
his  system.  The  pillars  of  British  trade  and  commerce — 
indeed  of  British  life — rest  on  these  seams  of  British  coal 
— ^and  so  upon  the  muscles  and  the  "mentals"  of  the  hardy 
men  that  shovel  these  precious  seams  to  the  surface  and 
into  the  country's  ships  and  fire-boxes. 

But  more  about  coal  when  we  get  to  Yorkshire. 


114  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Newport,  S.  Wales, 
Wednesday,  July  27. 

It  was  a  weary  day  yesterday;  with  the  strain  of  the  pits 
behind  it,  it  made  a  movie  here  last  night  look  attractive. 
But  get  away  from  the  labor  problem !  No  bloomin'  fear 
— ^as  the  expression  goes  here.  Just  when  the  plot  was 
getting  interesting,  with  the  villain  about  to  get  his  proper 
handling,  a  slide  came  on,  announcing  in  a  hurried  scrawl : 

"In  view  of  the  strike  of  the  laborers  at  the  municipal 
generating  station,  the  lights  and  power  of  the  trams 
and  all  the  city  will  be  turned  off  in  four  minutes.  Good 
Night!" 

Everybody"  went  to  bed  by  candle-light.  Even  this 
morning  the  good  nature  of  everybody  has  been  amazing. 
A  majority  of  the  workers  of  the  town  of  30,000  people  is 
said  to  be  put  out  of  work  because  eighty  maintenance-of- 
way  men — practically  unskilled  labor — ^are  asking  for  2/1 
per  hour.  That  is  several  pence  in  advance  of  workers  of 
the  same  grade  in  neighboring  cities. 

Over  in  the  great  dock  district  steamers  from  Japan  or 
AustraUa  are  to  be  seen  alongside  sailing  boats,  or  "wind- 
jammers," from  the  Argentine.  The  trouble  is  that  there 
is  nothing  like  the  proper  number  of  them.  Everybody 
is  complaining.  The  reason  is  coal — ^no  coal.  A  prom- 
inent M.  P.  of  Cardiff  states  pubhcly  that  an  additional 
reason  is  the  high  rates  and  low  energies  of  the  district's 
unionized  workers.  These,  he  claims,  are  driving  many 
ships  to  get  their  repairing  done  at  Antwerp  and  Rotter- 
dam, especially  now  that  no  bunkers  can  be  filled  with 
coal  except  after  the  greatest  and  most  annoying  and  ex- 
pensive delay.  Some  3,000  dockers  and  other  ship  workers 
here  are  said  to  be  facing  starvation.  It  is  a  sad  sight 
to  see  hundreds  of  them  there  at  the  hiring  offices  by  the 
gate  of  the  huge  dock. 

"Bloody  few  they're  tykin'  on,  with  all  them  a  comin' 


^'BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  115 

out,"  said  one  big  fellow  as  we  saw  about  thirty  coining  from 
the  hiring  office  to  rejoin  their  fellows  in  the  crowd. 

"Not  Uvin',  I  eyen't — ^just  bloody  lingerin',  I  calls  it,"  an- 
swered another  hotly  when  I  asked  if  he  made  his  living 
there  on  the  docks.  "Not  one  bloody  hower  of  work  'awve 
I  'ad  in  ten  weeks!" 

It  seems  a  heavy  price  to  pay  for  the  sabotage  and  im- 
happiness  of  my  recent  buddies. 

These  docks  must  have  been  a  busy  place  in  war  time 
when  many  cruisers  and  torpedo-boats  came  here  for  over-| 
hauling,  and  when  5,000  girls  worked  at  repairing  the  boxes 
for  holding  shell  cartridges,  returning  them  in  good  order 
to  the  munitions  factories  and  the  front.  This  last  week  a 
man  was  cleaning  up  the  weeds  that  now  grow  there — they 
are  threatening  now  to  grow  on  the  docks  themselves !  The 
poor  fellow  cut  into  a  stray  shell  which  proceeded  to  kill 
him  and  wound  his  mate. 

Yesterday  a  visit  to  one  of  the  district's  noted  steel 
towns  permitted  a  good  look  at  the  long  valley-filling  plant 
which  has  lately  been  claiming  the  largest  blast-furnaces  in 
the  world  and  promising  "the  cheapest  steel  in  the  world." 
Largest  in  Europe  proves  the  correct  title:  the  two  big 
furnaces  are  being  put  up  according  to  American  patents 
by  American  contractors.  Most  of  the  steel  is  made  by 
Bessemers  which  will  get  their  "hot  metal"  from  these 
furnaces.  Thirty  thousand  men  work  there,  though  most 
of  them  dig  coal  from  right  under  the  plant.  The  open- 
hearths  are  small  and  hand-charged.  The  papers  say,  how- 
ever, that  a  million  pounds  sterling  is  being  spent  in  new 
equipment  and  development,  in  addition  to  the  opening  up 
of  a  new  ore-field  in  Northamptonshire  to  increase  the 
supply  now  being  got  from  Spain. 

The  open-hearth  helpers  or  "hands"  on  the  "smelters" 
were  heartily  glad  to  be  done,  since  a  year  ago  in  March, 
with  the  twelve-hour  shift.    They  do  not  seem  to  have 


116  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

known  it  in  its  prime,  that  is,  with  the  seven-day  week,  for 
they  used  to  knock  off  for  week-end  and  only  take  an  occa- 
sional Sunday  or  Saturday  afternoon  turn  looking  after  the 
gas.    Sounds  mighty  pleasant ! 

Strangely  enough,  the  manager  of  the  smelting  stage  was 
the  only  man  still  working  the  long  turn-in  order,  I  suppose, 
to  share  his  responsibihty  and  his  income  with  only  one 
assistant. 

"Not  for  two  jobs  like  this  would  I  give  up  my  member- 
ship in  the  Union  of  Smelters  and  in  the  Officials  Associa- 
tion!" was  his  surprising  answer. 

The  general  manager  of  the  plant  is  said  to  be  one  of  the 
coming  men  of  the  country.  One  of  his  assistants  is  try- 
ing to  put  into  operation  his  ideas  about  better  industrial 
relations,  and  has  about  4,000  workers  paying  twopence 
per  week  toward  a  sports  field,  some  classes,  etc.,  while  the 
majority  of  the  officials  are  sure  the  plan  won't  work,  and 
the  workers  mostly  wonder  what  dodge  the  manager  is 
up  to  now. 

The  working  conditions  looked  to  me  quite  bad. 

"The  biggest  reason  we  can't  treat  the  men  as  well  as 
we'd  like  at  the  pay  window,  for  instance,  is  because  our 
pay-clerks  like  so  jolly  well  to  rub  into  the  other  workers 
their  own  superiority.  All  of  these  clerks  are,  of  course, 
members  of  the  clerks'  imion  themselves,  so  that  we  have 
to  be  jolly  careful  what  we  say."  This  was  the  answer  of 
a  yoimg  official  to  whom  the  assistant  was  good  enough  to 
introduce  me. 

An  energetic  young  man  in  charge  of  coal  operations 
stopped  off  with  two  years'  study  at  Boston  Tech  largely 
because  EngUsh  law  requires  of  all  operating  officials  a 
full  five  years  of  actual  mine  experience.  That  evidently 
discourages  full  scientific  study  by  making  full  preparation 
too  long. 

"Yes,  you  can  get  work,  I  dare  say,"  people  in  the  town 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  117 

and  at  the  furnaces  said,  "but  it's  a  bally  sight  harder  to 
find  lodgin's.    Men  leave  every  day  on  that  account." 

''Wanted — Men  for  France,  Malay  States,  Gold  Coast, 
Nigeria  and  Nyasa  Land,"  was  the  note  on  the  Ministry  of 
Labor's  Exchange. 

"We'll  put  you  in  touch  with  the  London  office  of  these 
foreign  employers  if  you  wish,"  the  clerks  told  me  when 
I  inquired,  "but  you'll  have  no  trouble  getting  on  here  at 
the  works  if  you  like."  I  shook  my  head,  having  in  mind 
both  the  apparent  impossibihty  of  getting  a  bed  in  the 
town  and  the  necessity  of  getting  acquainted  with  other 
parts  of  Britain. 

A  young  laborer  who  called  himself  a  navvy  and  looked 
it,  spent  the  twenty  miles  or  so  into  Newport  boasting  of 
his  luck  in  picking  up  a  street  laborer's  job  in  twenty 
minutes.  But  he  said  he  would  only  "stick  it"  the  week 
because  of  the  costliness  and  slowness  of  the  trains  back 
and  forth. 

Meanwhile  I  feel  with  the  man  yesterday  on  the  train 
near  Northhyr-Tidville  who  Kves  in  a  very  poverty-stricken 
looking  steel  town  in  this  district: 

"I  want  to  go  back  to  America  where  I  fought  at  San 
Juan  Hill  and  saw  Admiral  Cervera's  boats  get  knocked 
up,  one  by  one — and  where  a  man's  kiddies  get  a  much 
better  chance  than  here.  This  country's  bad  for  two 
reasons,  taxes  and  weather." 

So  endeth  the  First  Episode. 

If  the  others  are  anything  like  it,  I'll  be  wanting  to  tell 
every  employer  in  America  something  like  this:  "Be  care- 
ful you  don't  play  into  the  hands  of  the  unions  by  trying 
to  keep  your  relations  with  great  groups  of  workers  entirely 
on  the  old  individualistic  basis,  denying  them  the  right  of 
some  kind  of  collective  or  representative  dealing  through 
shop  committees  or  otherwise.  But  don't  let  any  form  of 
representative  dealing,  whether  with  shop  committees  or 


118  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

unions,  cause  you  to  forget  for  one  moment  the  prime 
importance  of  maintaining  close  personal  and  individual 
contacts  and  relationships  between  your  workers  and  the 
company  as  personified  to  the  men  in  your  carefully  chosen 
and  continuously  trained  foremen.  Continue  to  build 
these  representatives  of  the  company  and  to  hold  up  their 
hands  so  that  through  them  the  men  will  know  what  the 
company  itself  looks  Kke — ^and  so  that  they  will  like  its 
looks.  Consider  every  individual  grievance  that  comes  to 
the  committees  a  proof  of  a  failure  of  those  representatives 
of  you  and  the  company — that  is,  of  every  foreman  and 
other  ofiicer  to  perform  properly  his  true  function  as  contact- 
point  interpreters.  In  other  words,  have  the  committees 
or  the  union  as  a  guarantee  of  your  good  faith,  but  try  to 
make  them,  so  far  as  possible,  unnecessary  to  the  happiness 
and  self-respect  and  efficiency  of  the  men.  If  you  can't  do 
this,  don't  blame  the  leaders  too  much  for  building  up  the 
collective  plan  into  a  wall  between  yourselves  and  your 
individual  constituents." 

That  may  sound  reactionary.  I  don't  believe  it  is  as  I 
mean  it.  At  any  rate,  it  is  sure  to  occur  to  any  one  who 
sees  the  extent  to  which  management  and  the  individual 
workers  are  walled  off  from  each  other  here — to  the  en- 
dangering of  the  whole  coxmtry's  industry  and  life. 

f 

Saturday,  July  31st, 
Whitechapel,  London. 

Within  a  few  hours  the  train  starts  for  pastures  new. 

Am  glad  to  be  carrying  away  at  least  one  answer  to  that 
puzzHng  question:  ''Is  something  wrong  with  education 
here,  that  the  undersized  boys  in  the  steel  and  coal  towns 
of  South  Wales  seem  to  think  it  absurd  to  keep  at  it  after 
their  fourteenth  birthday?" 

"Well,  why  should  they  stay  longer?"  says  an  Oxford 
graduate  at  the  settlement  where  I  have  been  staying. 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINESV'  119 

"Just  as  a  miner  stated  to  me:  'If  I  give  my  boy  more 
schooling  he'll  not  earn  a  farthing  more  as  a  miner  for  it, 
and  all  he  can  become  is  a  clerk  [pronomiced  "dark"]  or 
a  teacher.  And  at  either  of  these  he'll  earn  considerably 
less  than  as  a  miner.  So  there  you  are !'  .  .  .  Ah,  yes,  the 
shortage  of  jobs,  even  for  men  of  advanced  education,  is 
most  serious,  I  do  assure  you.  Unless  he  goes  into  civil 
service  here  or  in  the  colonies — at  low  salary,  though  with 
considerable  security  and  a  pension — there's  very  little  a 
highly  educated  man  can  do.    I  think  I  may  say  that  my 

war  service  in  the Department  was  rather  exceptional, 

but  whenever  I  talk  with  any  official  about  an  opening  in 
trade  along  that  line,  I  am  assured  that  they  are  held  either 
for  relatives  of  influential  people,  or  for  those  few — ^very 
few,  I  assure  you — ^who  may  work  up  from  the  bottom. 
I  am  told  on  all  sides  that  I  could  get  a  very  good  berth 
in  America  with  my  experience,  but  with  my  sisters  I  can't 
very  well  pull  up." 

There  seems  to  be  general  agreement  with  him,  which 
makes  it  again  apparent  that  educational  facilities  do  not 
amount  to  a  great  deal  in  a  country  unless  there  are  also 
opportunities  for  the  use — the  profitable  use  of  them — that 
means  in  terms  of  jobs.  Part  of  the  trouble,  no  doubt, 
comes  from  the  fact  that  the  higher  education  here  is  mostly 

classical.    At  the Rolling  Mills,  in  Ohio,  some  tests 

showed  that  the  chief  trouble  makers  were  men  who  were 
doing  hand  jobs  when  they  were  fitted  and  anxious  to  do 
head  jobs.  I  wonder  if  by  any  chance  some  of  the  "intel- 
lectuals" here  who  are  at  or  near  the  head  of  the  Sociafist 
and  similar  labor  groups,  even  though  they  are  well-to-do 
and  have  never  worked,  are  men  who  fitted  themselves  in 
the  universities  for  the  most  important  kind  of  intellectual 
work,  and  then  failed  to  find  it.  Whether  this  is  so  or  not, 
I  am  certain  that  in  America  we  must  keep  an  eye  on  the 
invention  of  machinery  and  the  constant  improvement  of 


120  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

jobs  as  well  as  of  our  educational  facilities  in  order  to  avoid 
trouble.  The  two  must  go  hand  in  hand — education  and 
the  jobs  that  give  opportunity  for  those  who  have  taken 
advantage  of  it. 

By  one  of  the  secretaries  to  Lloyd  George — thanks  to  a 
letter  of  introduction,  I  had  tea  with  him  yesterday — it  was 
stated  that  this  whole  industrial  situation  is  now  improv- 
ing since  the  war,  because  the  university  graduates  are 
more  and  more  going  into  business  here  as  in  the  States. 

The  secretary  looks  like  an  idealist,  but  a  very  practical 
one — altogether  a  very  fine  type  of  young  man.  He  thinks 
that  in  spite  of  Bolshevism's  claims,  the  world  has  pretty 
much  established  the  general  principle  of  political  democ- 
racy, with  attention  now  required  only  for  the  details  of 
better  representation,  etc.  The  really  big  job,  therefore, 
is  some  workable  and  properly  productive  establishment  of 
industrial  democracy.  This  is  going  to  be  not  a  national 
but  an  international  problem.  For  instance,  the  Inter- 
national Miners  Conference  this  very  week  is  proposing 
at  Geneva,  Switzerland,  the  universal  adoption  of  the  six- 
hour  day  and  five-day  week,  a  world-wide  "down-tool"  for 
miners  to  stop  war,  etc.  (Tom  Shaw,  a  British  Labor 
M.  P.,  who  is  the  chairman  there,  by  the  way,  speaks  French 
and  German  fluently !) 

"The  labor  party  here,  of  course,  can't  fail  to  have  its 
policy  on  all  sorts  of  international  problems,  because  these 
all  come  so  close  to  the  British  worker.  ...  On  the 
matter  of  our  following  America  in  going  dry,  I  wish  you 
would  let  me  have  a  memo  of  your  ideas  and  suggestions 
after  you  have  seen  conditions  in  Scotland,  and  I'll  send 
them  to  Lady  Astor.    She  is  very  keen  on  it." 

"Your  secretary  friend's  boss,  Lloyd  George,  is  getting 
away  from  the  people  by  giving  undue  hearing  to  the  opin- 
ions of  such  men  as  Carson  and  Bonar  Law,  because  they 
can  control  votes  in  the  House,"  said  later  the  newspaper 


"BACK  TO  THE  MINES!"  121 

Hum  whose  suggestion  in  Kansas  City  is  responsible  for 
my  being  over  here.  Then  he  added,  following  his  recent 
trip  to  Ireland: 

"Things  seem  to  be  getting  worse  instead  of  better  in  the 
Irish  muddle.  Still  I  am  in  close  touch  with  some  of  the 
leading  Sinn  Feiners,  who  tell  me  they  would  consent  to 
Dominion  Home  Rule  except  for  the  promise  they  have 
given  to  the  American  servant  girls,  who  have  invested 
several  million  dollars  in  the  bonds  of  the  Irish  Republic, 
and  they  can't  back  down  until  they're  fought  down." 

"We  almost  never  have  any  cases  of  discharge  of  a  sort 
that  would  give  any  basis  for  the  workers'  appeal,"  said  the 
manager  of  a  big  department  store  the  same  afternoon. 
Apparently  the  discharging  of  a  person  from  any  job  here 
in  England  is  an  enormously  more  serious  thing  than  at 
home.  Of  course  it  should  be,  because  getting  a  job  is  so 
much  more  serious. 

"Our  working  people  are  leaving  the  unions,"  said  a 
noted  French  engineer  and  manufacturer  met  at  dinner. 
"The  extremists  got  control  and  tried  to  have  a  general 
strike  on  May  1.  But  the  power  was  not  off  three 
minutes  because  every  citizen  had  quietly  been  told  his 
position  to  assmne  when  the  workers  went  out.  And  that 
citizens'  organization — it  is  smiled  at,  or  what  you  say, 
winked  at,  by  the  government — ^is  now  permanent,  and  the 
workers  say  now:  *Let  us  bargain.  What  is  the  use  to 
strike?'" 

At  the  play  afterward  the  comedians  imparted  the  in- 
formation that  as  a  matter  of  fact  "Madam  Butterfly"  was 
the  mother  not  of  one  but  of  thirteen  children ! — ^because — 
"Well,  you  see,  their  father  was  an  American,  and  naturally, 
of  course,  he  believed  in  mass  production !" 

Anyway,  I  stood  up  straighter  this  afternoon  and  lifted 
my  hat  when  the  bus  drove  by  the  new  St.  Gaudens  statue, 
whose  pedestal  bore  no  date  and  no  statement  of  any  sort, 


122  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

only  the  name  "Abraham  Lincoln."  The  papers  are  print- 
ing— just  to  show  how  so  many  things  go  back  to  jobs — 
the  splendid  letter  he  wrote  to  the  Lancashire  cotton-mill 
workers,  expressing  gratitude  for  their  loyalty  to  the  cause 
of  freedom  for  the  slaves,  even  though  the  blockade  of  the 
Southern  ports  was  closing  the  mills  and  threatening  them 
with  starvation. 

I  only  wish  more  Americans  could  foil  a  certain  American 
newspaper  owner  and  the  Irish  anti-British  propagandists 
generally,  by  going  through  the  chapels  of  Westminster 
Abbey  and  so  coming  to  feel  how  definite  is  our  inheritance 
of  many  splendid  memories  via  England,  and  so  a  part  of 
our  own  as  well  as  Britain's  history.  It's  the  best  place 
for  stretching  hands  across  the  centuries  as  well  as  across 
the  seas  I  know,  also  the  best  sixpence  worth  of  good  his- 
tory in  the  world. 


CHAPTER  IV 

"YSnaAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?  ?? 

Glasgow, 
Saturday,  August  7. 

Mighty  poor,  for  sure,  are  the  prospects  for  getting  any 
job  in  these  parts. 

A  letter  from  a  London  official  to  one  of  the  biggest  steel 
men  here  secured  good  treatment,  but  the  * 'labor  super- 
intendent" was  unwilling  to  risk  trouble  with  his  men  by 
putting  me  into  the  plant  as  a  laborer.  So  to-morrow  I 
am  to  meet  his  shop-steward,  a  man  elected  by  the  workers, 
in  what  seems  to  be  the  largest  and  most  progressive  steel 
plant  of  the  city. 

The  official  says  it  was  during  the  war  that  he  was  put 
in  charge  of  all  wage  disputes,  as  well  as  all  hirings  and 
firings.  Of  these  last  I'll  warrant  "they  ain't  any."  Just 
last  week  I  was  told  that  the  railway  workers  who  had 
been  convicted  of  long-continued  stealing, — the  thefts  in- 
cluding five-hundred-dollar  pianos, — had,  nevertheless,  been 
kept  on  the  job  at  the  insistence  of  the  National  Union  of 
Railwaymen!  It  appears  that  during  the  war  this  steel 
company  got  the  reputation  of  having  the  most  unruly 
workers  of  this  whole  unruly  district.  At  present  the 
"labor  superintendent"  is  quite  certain  that  this  group  is 
much  happier  and  is  helping  to  make  the  whole  district 
more  quiet.    His  men  rim  well  into  the  thousands. 

"We  are  trying  to  fix  everything  now  so  that  the  extrem- 
ists have  no  bad  conditions  to  point  to,  though  that  some- 
times requires  my  'letting  a  foreman  or  superintendent 
down'  where  he's  done  wrong.    We  try  to  keep  grievances 

123 


124  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

from  getting  so  far  along  as  to  call  for  union  treatment. 
But  we  are  lucky  in  having  in  British  steel  a  conservative 
and  reliable  general  union — outside  the  tradesmen's  unions 
like  the  engineers,  builders,  etc.  What  we'll  have  when 
Hodges,  Pugh,  and  the  other  good  leaders  die,  I  don't  know, 
but  anyway,  we  must  play  with  them  and  we  are  glad  to 
play  with  them.  .  .  .  I'm  trying  to  get  away  from  the 
term  'payment  by  results,'  or  'piece-work.'  The  men 
don't  like  it  because  they  say  it  pulls  them  apart  when  one 
man  manages  to  get  a  lot  more — or  less — than  the  chap 
right  next  to  him.  But  they  are  liking  our  plan  of  'Co- 
operative or  Group  Bonus.'  By  means  of  this  the  whole 
gang  shares  the  results  of  the  whole  gang's  production.  By 
it  they'll  get  more  than  the  union  gives,  provided  they  all 
work  together  to  get  out  the  steel." 

At  another  big  plant,  in  a  sort  of  steel  suburb,  a  letter  got 
me  to  the  works  manager.  But  both  he  and  his  big  deputy 
manager  (formerly  a  imion  representative)  were  unwilling 
to  take  any  chance  of  upsetting  their  good  relations  with 
their  workers  by  putting  on  the  job  any  one  who  might  be 
thought  a  spy. 

"Most  of  our  several  thousand  men  are  in  the  general 
steel  worker's  imion,  and  ye  could  na  stay  long  wi'out 
joining.  In  thirty  years  it's  no  trouble  we  have  had — 
except  with  the  tradesmen's  unions.  If  a  man  has  com- 
plaint it  is  decided  by  two  representatives  from  both  sides, 
and  two  neutral  chairmen.  It  has  worked  well.  The 
Clyde  district  ?  Ah,  thot's  dufiferent.  Most  of  the  trouble 
there  has  come  from  the  general  (common)  laborers,  and 
they  are  largely  Irish.  .  .  .  And  there,  too,  it  is  so  im- 
portant to  give  the  men  no  cause,  ye  oonderstand,  thot  it 
is  fair  oonlikely  that  ony  employer  will  hire  ye." 

The  surprising  thing  over  here  is  the  way  a  distance  of 
twelve  miles,  as  in  this  case,  seems  to  make  the  situation 
entirely  different.    These  officers  must  surely  have  reasou 


''WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    125 

for  thinking  that  they  are  not  in  the  Clyde-bank  class  at 
all,  at  all.  It  is  a  little  easier  to  understand  when  I  recall 
the  number  of  miner  folk  back  in  the  Rhondda  for  whom 
the  longest  trip  of  their  lives  took  them  perhaps  to  Cardiff 
or  Swansea ! 

On  the  way  back  to  town  it  was  hardly  possible  to  imder- 
stand  the  Scotchiness  of  some  colliery  boys  who  were 
coming  in  for  this  afternoon's  field  sports.  By  dint  of 
highly  concentrated  Ustening  it  became,  finally,  possible  to 
learn  that  a  "guid  mon  and  a  braw  worker — at  the  face,  ye 
mind,  ha? — gets  his  sax  (6)  poon'  (pound)  the  week.  Uf 
he  gi'ed  muir  coal  nor  thot,  he'd  ha'  his  rate  coot.  Nae 
mon  do  muir  nor  thot,  awnd  most  do  only  the  meenemum 
of  seventeen  shillin'  the  day." 

Earl  Haig's  continued  appeals  for  jobs  for  the  200,000 
soldiers  still  jobless  makes  the  prospect  of  finding  work 
without  pull  pretty  punk,  and  now  it  looks  equally  hope- 
less with  pull. 

Well,  anyway,  I  haven't  altogether  lost  time  in  trying  to 
learn  if  "there's  a  reason"  why  the  Clyde-bank  shipbuild- 
ers and  dock  workers  have  the  reputation  in  London,  at 
least,  of  being  the  most  restless  and  radical  of  all  British 
workmen.  It  is  apparently  impossible  for  any  one  to  be 
here  many  hours  without  running  into  one  complicating 
factor — namely  whiskey. 

After  getting  here  late  Thursday  night  I  sallied  forth  last 
evening  to  see  if  the  town  was  as  bad  for  drunkenness  as 
current  reports  would  make  it.  With  my  first  step  onto 
the  street  I  saw  two  drunken  men  reeling  along  through  the 
crowd — it  was  very  near  the  centre  of  the  city — with  two 
more  encountered  in  my  first  fifty  yards.  Ten  feet  farther 
there  was  a  crowd  watching — with  evident  enjoyment ! — a 
poor  creature  of  a  sottish,  middle-aged  woman,  picking 
herself  up  from  the  sidewalk  and  with  unctuous  care  dust- 
ing off  her  filthy  and  bedraggled  skirts.    Finally,  with  a 


126  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

labored  assumption  of  the  magnificent  dignity  and  extreme 
hauteur  of  a  much-maligned  but  still  unsulUed  perfect  lady, 
she  lurched  in  the  direction  of  a  drunken  man  who  hap- 
pened to  be  passing,  and  when  he  unexpectedly  stopped  to 
show  her  his  good-will,  she  bumped  full  into  him,  and  then 
caromed  ofif  of  him  across  the  street  and  up  an  alley  out 
of  sight. 

Four  more — ^and  then  four  more — drunken  laborers  were 
encountered  in  the  next  two  or  three  short  blocks  on  the 
way  up  to  a  big  group  collected  in  the  middle  of  the  street. 
There  the  speaker  was  proposing  seriously  that  "while  our 
British  army  is  in  Poland  killing  our  brother  Bolshevists, 
we  will  rise — and  then  call  the  soldiers  back  to  a  London 
and  a  Glasgow  Soviet !"  A  good  proportion  of  his  hearers 
appeared  delighted,  and  yelled  "Hear!  hear!"  with  gusto. 

In  a  very  modem  and  handsome  movie  theatre  Pussyfoot 
Johnson  was  caricatured  in  a  play  which  showed  him  and 
all  his  colleagues  dead  drunk  at  the  uproarious  end  of  their 
highly  hectic  crusadings.  By  that  time  it  was  nine,  and 
the  pubs  were  closing.  A  crowd  was  watching — with  the 
eyes  of  connoisseurs — a  poor  chap  in  the  cap  and  suit  of  a 
steamship's  engineer,  slowly  pick  himseK  up  from  the  side- 
walk and  lean  against  the  building,  blood  running  from  his 
nose.  Two  young  girls  of  about  seventeen  evidently  thought 
it  a  perfectly  lovely  joke.  Across  the  street  in  an  alley- 
way— ^by  this  time  the  police  had  come  and  ordered  the 
engineer  on  by  threat  of  arrest — the  crowd  was  gathering 
for  the  enjoyment  of  a  fight.  The  thin  but  wiry  boy  had 
the  ragged  clothes,  dirty  neck  muffler,  long,  front  hair  and 
much-soiled  shirt  of  the  laborer;  he  was  not  too  drunk  to 
complain  that  his  opponent  had  kicked  him  seriously  and 
unfairly,  but  he  was  too  drunk  to  take  the  advice  of  the 
pair  of  pohcemen  to  drop  his  quarrel.  So  they  hustled 
him  off. 

One  of  the  bystanders  protested  that  "they  would  na  do 


''WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    127 

thot  uf  he  was  no'  a  workin'  mon,  ye  mind.  Uf  'e  'ad 
money  they  would  'a'  'elped  'un — noo  they  stand  oop  fer 
'is  tormentors — ^awnd  they  gets  part  o'  'is  j&ne!" 

Here's  the  tale  of  my  interpreter: 

"Me  mother  is  a  droonkard — thot's  w'y  I'm  'ere.  A 
perfect  vixen  she  is,  too,  when  she's  in  liquor.  Fifteen  year 
ago  me  father  left  her — he'd  met  her,  ye  see,  in  a  restaurant 
where  she  was  a  waitress.  Mony  chances  'e  give  'er,  too, 
I  will  say,  but  she  couldn't  do  better.  Where  'e  is  noo,  I 
don't  know.  If  it  wasn't  for  keepin'  an  eye  on  'er  in  the 
town  'ere,  I  think  I'd  try  Canada.  Or  I  could  go  back  to 
the  army — ^and  do  well,  too,  after  six  year  of  it;  but  I  want 
to  try  civil  life  again — an'  take  a  look  after  'er,  too,  y' 
oonde-r-stawnd  ?  No,  I  can't  live  with  'er — she's  fair 
impossible.  But  'ere  at  this  Salvation  Army  'ostel — 
'model,'  they  call  it — you  can  get  a  fair  bed  for  a  shilUn'. 
But  there's  a  'alf-dozen  in  the  same  room,  d  'ye  see,  an'  no 
place  to  change  or  'ave  any  baggage.  I  'ope  to  get  a  decent 
job  to-morrow — with  good  luck.  .  .  .  There's  too  mony 
people  'ere.  Thot's  the  trouble.  Why,  before  the  war  you 
could  rent  ony  'ouse  you  wanted — and  now — ^nothing.  It 
must  be  thot  they  imported  a  lot  of  cheap  labor — ^Eyetalians 
and  all  them  yellow  and  black  races,  ye  mind? — to  do  the 
work  w'Ue  we  was  fightin'  and  now  they're  oonwillin'  to 
give  us  back  our  jobs.  I'm  fair  sick  of  it — these  people  in 
here,  in  the  'model,'  they  'ave  no  refinement  w'atever — it's 
nothin'  but  booze  an'  filth  with  'em  all  the  time.  No  ambi- 
tion they  got  to  be  onybody,  and  they  throw  their  children 
out  on  the  streets.  Oh,  I'm  fed  up  on  it,  I  can  tell  ye. 
Somebody's  makin'  too  much  off  us  workers.  They  say 
exchinge  is  bad.  Now  why  should  we  bother  about  dollars 
and  francs  and  a'  thot — ^an'  everybody — every  nation — 
joost  mind  its  own  business !  Why  should  we  let  exchinge 
bother  us — thot's  w'at  I  want  to  know!  One  eighth  o' 
the  people  works  and  the  rest  is  parasites!    Out  o'  fifty 


128  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

people  'ere  on  the  streets,  I  give  ye  my  word,  forty-nine  of 
'em's  crooks  an'  leeches  an'  prostitutes!  That's  'onest — 
forty-nine  of  'em !  Awnd  uf  ye  get  into  one  o'  these  crowds 
on  Bath  Street,  a-watchin'  the  performers  or  a-'earin'  the 
argmnents,  pick-pockets  will  be  dippin'  in  yer  pockets 
sure.  .  .  .  WuU,  take  a  look  to-morrow  in  the  Citizen. 
Ye're  sure  to  find  some  skilled  jobs  there — thot's  the  trouble. 
All  skilled  and  no  general  labor  wanted.  Good  night  awnd 
good  luck  awnd  a  good  job  to  ye!" 

Though  it  was  getting  late  the  crowds  were  still  watching 
some  boy  acrobats  on  Bath  Street  and  Bolshevism  was 
being  argued  back  and  forth  in  groups  where  men  massed 
around  the  disputants,  pushing  their  best  ears  in  as  far  as 
possible. 

"Propaganda — thot's  it.  They  take  the  American  offer 
for  the  ten  thousand  ton  of  rails  here  on  oor  streets,  not  to 
save  thot  thirty  thousand  poon'  (pounds)  but  to  scare  oos 
workers  into  bein'  more  tractive  like.  Why  couldn't  they 
pay  ten  thousand  poon'  more  uf  'twould  pay  oos  workers — 
oos  workers  thot  won  the  war!" 

"More  regularity  in  work  it  is  as  does  it  in  America. 
It  must  be,  for  if  they  pay  good  wages,  then  they  must 
plan  to  make  as  mwjh  profits  in  a  year  as  here.  Ah,  they're 
cunning,  these  capitalists!  Only  they  don't  discharge 
10,000  men  over  there  on  a  moment's  notice  like  they  do 
here." 

"Why  was  there  only  one  bid  from  all  the  Scotch  awnd 
English  companies  oonless  'twas  propoganda?"  asks  the 
other. 

"Ah,  but  they'll  all  bid  here  for  steel  as  soon  as  ever  they 
have  everything  set — just  as  the  Americans  won't  sell  you 
certain  things,  like  watches — I'm  a  watchmaker  and  I  know 
— until  they're  ready.  There's  some  reason — ^and  besides, 
capitalists  are  bound  together  all  over  the  world!  Profit 
knows  no  patriotism,  you  know." 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    129 

"But  did  na  Germany  in  the  heich  o'  the  warr  show  thot 
communism  canna  be  beaten  ?  By  linkin'  its  labor  and  its 
nateral  resoorces  all  together  for  the  state  it  stood  off  the 
worrld!" 

And  so  on,  without  end,  and  without  any  apparent 
arrival  anywhere.  The  chief  trouble  was  that  in  time 
nearly  every  argument  was  entered  into  by  the  same  drunken 
fellow  who  wanted  to  be  taken  very  seriously  but  did  Uttle 
more  than  repeat — without  any  attention  to  his  answerers 
— the  same  question  with  a  drunken  leer  of  cimning,  as 
though  he  had  cornered  everybody.  That  done,  he  would 
perhaps  denounce  all  the  world's  supply  of  capitaUsts  in 
language  of  most  frightful  blasphemy  and  obscenity.  At 
all  times,  the  breaths  of  the  whole  crowd  were  terrible  to 
suffer  for  the  sake  of  one's  ears. 

All  of  which  seems  to  be  an  ordinary  evening  in  Glasgow. 

I  wonder  if  it's  a  cause  or  an  effect — or  only  a  symptom 
— of  Glasgownian  unrest. 

Glasgow 
Sunday  night, 
August  8,  1920. 

"That's  where  Glasgow  blows  off  steam." 

A  table  companion  has  just  now  given  that  description 
of  "Glasgow  Green,"  where  I've  been  listening  to  more 
Radicalism  this  afternoon  than  I  heard  in  my  whole  seven 
months  of  job-searching  in  America. 

The  meeting  advertised  was  to  promote  the  policy  of  the 
big  national  unions  of  Great  Britain  to  "down  tools" 
rather  than  fight  with  Russia  or  give  the  various  wars  on 
the  Continent  any  help  whatever.  When  I  finally  got  my 
ear  into  the  first  big  crowd,  it  was  a  great  surprise  to  hear 
the  speaker  calling  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury  a  Har 
because  he  had  said  something  unfriendly  to  betting  on 
races.  It  gradually  became  evident  that  the  speaker  was 
trying  to  sell  a  racing  sheet  which  he  guaranteed  infaUible 


130  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

in  helping  its  readers  to  pick  the  winning  horse.  After  Hs- 
tening  for  some  time  to  the  next  centre  of  a  big  crowd — ■ 
after  laboriously  screwing  myself  into  ear's  length — the 
same  discovery  resulted.  The  third  crowd  was  smaller; 
the  speaker  was  making,  within  about  twenty  feet  of  dis- 
tance, the  great  jump  from  racing  to  religion!  Finally  I 
got  into  the  huge  crowd  farther  in  by  the  Nelson  Monu- 
ment— to  learn  from  several  speakers  that  "Socialism  is  the 
country's  only  hope!"  that  ''Russia  is  being  fought  by  the 
Poles  only  because  the  desperate  and  frightened  financial 
and  capitahstic  powers  realize  themselves  in  a  death-grip 
with  their  mortal  foe";  that  ''Bolshevism  and  Capitalism 
cannot  Uve  on  the  same  globe"  because  "Bolshevism  makes 
a  demonstration  of  the  power  of  the  working  men  to  get 
everything  they  want  the  moment  they  will  practise  the 
soHdarity  the  war  showed  them  to  possess.  This  is  the  great 
crisis.  Unity  now  will  save  the  world  from  bloodshed — and 
help  us  to  put  into  operation  in  all  our  chief  cities  the  hu- 
mane and  efficient  regime  of  the  Soviets."  (Much  applause 
and  a  multitudinous  "Hear!  hear!") 

When  they  were  all  shouted  out,  the  resolution  as  framed 
in  London  by  the  chief  union  heads  was  put — and  from  all 
appearances  carried  unanimously — incidentally,  also,  to  the 
waving  of  the  flag  of  the  Irish  Republic ! 

The  highly  respectable  appearance  and  the  oratorical 
ability  of  these  speakers  were  quite  surprising,  as  also  of 
those  who  followed  in  the  vehement  urging  of  the  Anti- 
Rent  Increase  Strike  proposed  for  August  23 — to  last  only 
one  day  and  to  be  followed  by  the  withholding  of  any  rent 
whatever  until  the  landlord  or  his  agent  (called  the  factor) 
agrees  not  to  take  advantage  of  the  government's  permis- 
sion to  increase  his  charges  thirty-five  or  forty  per  cent  over 
pre-war  figures. 

The  other  outstanding  feature  of  all  the  talks  was  the 
continuous  appeal  to  the  "working  class."    In  that,  how-' 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    131 

ever,  they  are  only  following,  so  far  as  I  can  see,  the  lead  of 
all  the  rest  of  the  country.  In  newspapers  that  speak  of 
the  Report  of  the  Cost  of  Wool  something  is  sure  to  be  said 
about  "yams  used  in  clothes  made  for  the  working  class." 
Editorials  seem  to  juggle  the  "working  classes"  with  "mid- 
dle classes"  and  "upper  classes"  continuously.  Railways 
cause  an  awful  howl  when  they  say  they  want  to  stop  ask- 
ing the  middle  classes  to  make  up  the  deficit  caused  by 
enormous  reductions  given  to  the  users  of  "working  class" 
tickets.  (Just  now  they're  raising  their  price  and  calling 
them  "Early  Hour"  trains!) 

"Workin'  clawss  we  are,"  my  weary  landlady  there  at 
the  mines  would  say  in  explanation  of  her  home's  simplic- 
ity every  time  I  set  about  for  my  "bathin'  "  in  the  kitchen. 
Everywhere,  up  and  down  and  across  and  at  all  times, 
the  current  explanation,  alibi,  or  appeal  appears  to  be  made 
in  terms  of  class  interests  and  differences.  Certainly  noth- 
ing could  be  put  in  more  bitter  words  than  the  constant 
exhortation  that  the  working  class  revenge  itself  upon  the 
"capitaUstic  class"  as  the  planner  and  author  of  every  evil 
perpetrated  or  imagined. 

"The  Kaiser  whom  we  licked  buys  himself  a  castle. 
And  you  and  I  of  the  working  classes  that  licked  him,  and 
put  om*  bodies  between  him  and  Britain's  homes — ^we  have 
not  where  to  lay  our  heads!" 

Of  course,  the  Anti-Rent  Increase  Strike  carried,  with 
every  hand  in  the  air. 

"The  widdies  and  orphans  of  the  workers  that  fought 
in  Flanders,  how  cawn  they  pay  more  rent  the  noo?"  a 
young  engineer  asked  me  after  he  had  said  he  was  getting 
six  pounds  the  week  after  twenty  years  of  work  with  a  very 
fair  employer.  "It's  our  government  thot's  betrayin'  oos. 
It's  hes  and  perjury  they  make  of  the  fair  promises  they 
gi'n  oos  at  the  elections." 

He  had  no  answer  when  asked  why  he  felt  so  sure  that 


132  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

the  people's  elected  representatives  under  Bolshevist  or  any- 
other  auspices  would  be  any  more  reliable. 

^'France  should  gang  her  ain  gait — and  we  oors.  Then 
Germany  could  walk  in  and  do  for  them  Frenchies,"  a 
group  of  four  or  five  apparently  skilled  mechanics  were 
saying  at  one  side — with  amazingly  calm  cold-bloodedness. 

The  sellers  of  every  kind  of  Socialist,  Bolshevist,  sporting, 
and  sensational  paper  were  doing  an  enormous  business  as 
the  crowd  broke  up — after  following  a  group  of  Sinn  Feiners 
about  in  the  hope  of  some  excitement. 

This  evening — and  this  afternoon — I  have  been  saying  to 
myself:  "Gaze  on  this  picture,  then  on  that,"  as  I  have  re- 
called from  last  night  what  constituted,  without  doubt,  the 
most  depressing  portrayal  of  humanity  it  has  ever  been  my 
lot  to  see. 

Passing  the  numerous  drunken  men  in  the  centre  of  the 
city  and  going  into  what  is  called  the  Cowcaddens  district 
just  before  closing  time  at  nine,  I  found  the  pubs  crowded 
with  women  as  well  as  men,  most  of  them  drinking  large 
glasses  of  whiskey  followed  by  beer. 

"She's  a  workin'  woman,  ye  mind.  Too  bawd  thot  awld 
she  is,"  answered  a  fat,  blear-eyed  woman  who  was  crying 
drunkenly  with  her  arm  around  a  rather  sweet-faced  old 
lady  whose  combination  of  toothlessness  and  whiskey  made 
her  words  about  her  daily  job  of  scrubbing  impossible  to 
understand.  One  young  woman  with  a  very  sweet  face 
was  with  her  husband,  enjoying  a  final  whiskey-beer  as  the 
bell  commenced  to  ring  for  closing,  while  everybody  surged 
up  for  the  final  order  and  the  bartender  and  barmaids 
shouted  and  banged:  "Time,  gents,  time!  Pass  along 
now!" 

Outside  there  seemed  hardly  a  sober  person  of  either  sex 
on  the  crowded  streets.  Men  and  women  lurched  into  the 
road  and  sang  and  swore  and  fell — ^while  children  seemed  to 
take  it  all  as  a  matter  of  course.    Certainly  they  grow  up 


*' WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    133 

in  it,  judging  from  the  women  stumbling  their  drunken  way 
home  with  their  babies  in  the  nursing  shawls,  which  here, 
as  in  South  Wales,  seem  to  be  the  all  but  universal  badge 
of  femininity  from  childhood  up.  To  a  father,  at  least,  it  is 
heartrending  to  see  the  dreadful  number  of  wretched  chil- 
dren with  sadly  bent  or  knock-kneed  legs — caused,  they 
say,  by  rickets,  the  "poverty  disease." 

In  the  next  block  the  wife  and  friends  were  able  to  pull  a 
drunken  young  man  away  in  time  to  prevent  the  threatened 
fight,  but  a  little  farther  on  two  drunken  fellows — one  of 
them  covered  with  blood  and  weeping  copiously  in  the  arms 
of  his  friend  who  had  got  a  hard  pummelling  himself  by 
both  contestants  in  his  r61e  of  attempted  peacemaker — 
had  to  be  separated  by  the  poUce  and  sent  along  home  in 
the  arms  of  their  less-drunken  neighbors. 

By  that  time  everybody  was  running  down  the  street. 
For  our  exertions  we  were  rewarded  by  seeing  a  man  lean- 
ing out  of  the  fourth-story  v/indow  of  the  line  of  tenements, 
blowing  vigorously  on  a  police  whistle.  While  the  crowd 
grew  dense,  a  policeman  calmly  waited  until  he  was  joined 
by  two  others — as  though  he  knew  altogether  too  much  to 
go  up  alone.  Shortly  they  came  down,  holding  up  between 
them  the  man,  heavily  bandaged  about  the  head.  "  'Twas 
his  wife  thot  stabbed  him,"  people  whispered  eagerly  one 
to  the  other  as  the  ambulance  honked  and  clanged  its  way 
through  the  jam. 

A  little  farther  down  I  thought  to  give  a  kindly  word  to 
one  of  the  filthiest  hags  I  have  ever  seen,  in  the  hope  of 
learning  how  she  accounted  for  herself  and  what  particular 
idea  or  illusion  happened  to  furnish  her  with  the  necessary 
modicimi  of  self-respect.  When  face  to  face,  it  was  amazing 
to  note  that  in  spite  of  her  rags  of  filthy  sacking  under  the 
greasy  and  disreputable  shawl  held  about  her  by  twine, 
and  underneath  the  coarse  black  beard  which  marked  the 
lines  of  her  chin  and  jaw,  she  had  really  a  strong  face.    She 


134  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

looked  at  me  keenly  and  with  some  fair  degree  of  sobriety, 
though  her  breath  bespoke  whiskey. 

''It's  a  gentleman  of  intelligence  and  education  that's 
speakin',"  she  said.  She  was  evidently  not  looking  for 
sympathy  in  the  way  I  had  assumed.  The  reason  became 
evident — to  my  utter  amazement — when  she  answered  my 
question  as  to  how  she  got  along  in  the  world.  In  words  of 
dreadful  obscenity,  but  in  a  manner  much  as  a  shipwright 
would  assert  his  position  above  a  casual  dock  laborer,  she 
made  clear  her  active  standing,  not  as  a  common  beggar, 
but  as  a  daughter  of  Ishmael,  the  proud  possessor  of  a 
trade,  a  self-supporting  member  of  the  demi-monde ! 

It  required  the  utmost  of  self-control  to  stifle  my  gasp 
of  horror. 

When  I  passed  on  to  talk  with  a  drunken  Irishman  who 
proudly  showed  me  his  wound  "from  Wipers  and  with  the 
Black  Watch,  sir!"  she  suddenly  broke  out  with:  ''Ye're  a 
spy!  That's  what  ye  are!"  She  was  talking  with  others 
excitedly  as  I  waved  good-by  to  her  and  the  soldier  and 
strolled  on  to  the  nearest  brawl.  When  it  came  to  going 
up  some  of  the  alleys  filled  with  loud-talking,  or  yelling,  and 
very  intoxicated  groups  of  men  and  women,  it  seemed  wise 
to  turn  up  my  coat  collar,  pull  down  my  cap,  and  then  to 
stagger — in  order  not  to  attract  tmdue  attention. 

Without  exaggeration,  the  majority  of  people  in  the  dis- 
trict appeared  intoxicated,  women  as  well  as  men.  The 
dreadful  language  a  man  and  woman  were  yelling  at  each 
other  from  different  floors  in  one  of  the  horrid  tenements 
is  ringing  in  my  ears  yet — along  with  some  of  the  other 
frightful  profanity  of  the  streets.  And  in  all  places  and  at 
all  hours,  yoimg  girls  laughing  hilariously  at  the  drunken 
wrecks  of  either  sex,  while  under  the  feet  of  the  crowd  of 
every  fight  and  every  argument,  run  and  squirm — and  look 
and  listen — the  bareheaded,  barefooted,  bow-legged,  or 
knock-kneed  little  children — till  a  chap  some  thousands  of 


CHILDREN  IN  A  CROWDED  GLASGOW  DISTRICT. 

The  little  mother  in  the  centre  with  the  "nursing  shawl"  and  the  baby  could  not 
keep  from  being  surrounded  by  her  friends.  The  number  of  Glasgow's  children 
having  the  bent  legs  or  otherwise  deformed  by  rickets,  the  "poverty  disease,"  is 
enough  to  make  a  lonesome  father  sick  at  heart. 


A  SALOON   OR    "PUB"    IN   LONDON'S   EAST   END   AS  A    "NEIGH- 
BORHOOD  CENTRE   "   TO   WHICH   THE   BABE   IN   ARMS 
IS  BECOMING  ACCUSTOMED   EARLY. 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    135 

lonely  miles  away  froipi  his  own  youngsters  has  hard  work 
to  keep  back  his  tears. 

In  a  near-by  open  square  knots  of  men,  as  though  on 
Bath  Street,  were  arguing  poUtics  and  economics. 

"They  be  no  arguments — 'tis  naught  but  whiskey,"  said 
a  poUceman.  "To-morrow  with  the  pubs  closed,  'twill  be 
quiet  enough." 

In  my  entire  evening  only  one  worker  had  said  a  sober 
word  to  me.  He  looked  like  a  careful  man  of  some  skill 
and  thrift: 

"Yes,  I'm  Irish,  but  I'd  not  like  to  work  alongside  one 
from  there  just  now.  In  Belfast  lately,  in  the  shipyards,  a 
friend  was  telling  me,  a  new  worker — from  the  South,  he 
was — had  on  him  a  revolver  with  fifteen  rounds  o'  ammyni- 
tion.  Of  course,  they  refused  to  work  with  'im.  .  .  .  Yes, 
they're  aye  takin'  on  new  min  here,  but  ye  must  join  a 
union  to  stay." 

At  Bath  Street,  near  midnight,  the  groups  were  just  as 
hectic  as  before  except  that  the  drunken  interruptions  were 
much  more  frequent  than  earlier  in  the  evening. 

",  .  ,  great  argument 
About  it  and  about,  but  evermore  came  out 
By  that  same  door  wherein  I  went." 

When  I  look  on  that  picture  and  then  on  the  revolution- 
ary festival  of  this  afternoon,  I  keep  wondering  whether 
there  is  any  connection  between  them  and  if  so  what  it  is 
— cause,  effect,  symptom,  or  what.  Of  this,  at  least,  I  am 
sure — Glasgow  is  certainly  the  most  revolutionary  and  also 
the  most  rum-ridden  and  degraded  city  I  ever  yet  have 
seen. 

Glasgow 

Tuesday,  August  10,  1920. 

The  talk  to-day — in  my  regular  character — ^with  the  shop 
steward  and  some  workers  from  the  biggest  steel  plant  was 


136  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

quite  worth  while.  Here  are  some  conclusions.  How  much 
they're  worth,  I've  no  idea,  but  they  are  agreed  to  by  the 
labor  manager's  assistant  who  used  himself  to  be  a  union 
leader: 

"The  Clyde  district  is  not  actually  as  bad  as  it's  painted. 
Neither  are  the  big  labor  leaders;  they  exaggerate  just  as 
do  the  engineers  when  they  ask  eightpence  an  hour  raise 
and  know  that  all  they  hope  to  get  is  fourpence. 

"It's  &  job  that  everybody  wants — a  regular,  steady  job. 
When  some  of  our  ship  ways  were  covered  in  so  the  men 
could  work  in  all  weather,  trouble  with  them  decreased  by 
two-thirds.  The  various  unions  fight  each  other  as  bitterly 
as  they  do  the  employers — all  for  jobs.  When  work  was 
scarce  here  after  the  armistice,  engineers  got  to  taking 
laborers'  jobs — ^until  the  engineers'  union  was  forced  to 
stop  it — or  become  the  enemy  of  all  the  others. 

"One  of  our  supers  here  said  lately:  'No,  that's  why  I've 
not  promoted  him.  It's  harder  to  find  a  good  worker  now 
than  a  passable  foreman!'  Yes,  sir,  that's  what  he  said! 
Of  course,  that  discourages  every  worker — closes  the  door 
to  promotion  in  his  face,  ye  see. 

"Health  insurance?  Why,  it's  a  tragedy!  a  popular 
doctor  is  chosen  by  thousands — too  many  for  him  to  give 
them  proper  attention.  He  just  gives  them  a  look  and 
writes  out  a  fool  prescription. 

"All  our  whiskey  troubles  come  from  Simday  closing — 
men  prepare  for  Sunday  too  well — and  on  bad  whiskey, 
mainly  imported  from  America!  Prohibition?  No  fear! 
Why,  hquor  is  the  government's  best  milch-cow — gets 
nearly  one  million  pounds  from  it — sixty-eight  out  of  every 
seventy-nine  shillings  spent  at  the  bar.  Yes,  sir,  without 
rum  we'd  certainly  have  revolution ! 

"During  the  war  the  pacifists  here  beheved  Germany 
would  win.  'We  better  make  the  best  terms  possible  with 
Jerry,'  they  said.  So  they  struck — in  spite  of  national 
union  leaders  that  came  to  help  the  government  to  get  them 


"WHAT'S   THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    137 

to  work.  Nine  of  the  local  agitators  were  sent  away  from 
here — probably  a  mistake.  Now — with  the  H.  C.  L.  as  the 
chief  irritant — one  group  is  for  collective  bargaining  on  old 
union  lines,  while  the  younger — and,  yes,  the  more  numer- 
ous— ones  are  for  constant  irritation  between  men  and 
masters  as  the  definite  means  to  social  revolution.  That's 
why  the  engineers  near  Sheffield  are  striking  because  a  new 
foreman  is  not  a  member  of  their  union.  They  know  there's 
no  sense  to  that  but  it  helps  make  trouble.  The  masters 
do  well  to  fight  it." 

One  of  the  men — ^he  is  a  union  head  and  also  a  member  of 
the  city  council  in  a  large  British  steel  town — is  a  very 
thoughtful,  conservative  chap.  The  other,  from  thie  local 
plant,  is  not  very  Uve  or  intelligent.  A  third,  from  the 
labor  exchange,  is  a  typical  low-browed  poKtician. 

To-night  I  hurried  down  to  meet  the  two  who  called  from 
the  plant  workers'  conunittee  for  a  further  talk — to  find 
that  they  had  gone  because  one  of  them,  according  to  the 
porter,  was  intoxicated ! 

Yesterday^  the  manager  of  the  street  railways — owned  and 
operated  by  the  city — said  that  most  of  the  steel  rails  on 
Glasgow's  streets  had  been  rolled  at  Lorain,  Ohio !  Also 
that  he  had  asked  twenty-five  or  thirty  companies  here  and 
everywhere  in  England  to  bid  for  the  recent  ten-thousand- 
ton  order  and  that  only  one  British  company  had  rephed. 
It  quoted  a  price  of  twenty-eight  pounds  with  the  provision 
that  this  would  go  up  if  the  price  of  steel  in  England  gen- 
erally was  raised.  An  American  company  had  offered  a 
settled  price  of  twenty-foiu*  pounds  ten.  Both  his  sub- 
committees of  the  council  had  agreed  and  the  order  had 
been  given,  and  the  rails  are  now  being  rolled  at  Lorain. 
Later  a  labor  representative  in  the  council  made  an  objec- 
tion alleging  bad  pay  and  bad  conditions  in  the  American 
steel  plants,  referring  particularly  to  the  twelve-hour  day, 
so  now  the  council  is  withholding  its  0.  K. 

Although  he  does  not  seem  to  be  worried  about  the  out- 


138  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

come  and  only  wants  the  rails  quickly,  nevertheless  it  makes 
a  very  good  example  of  the  way  this  matter  of  labor  rela- 
tions and  conditions  may  enter  into  the  whole  afifair  of 
international  business,  for  he  did  delay  the  order  to  the 
point  of  getting  a  disclaimer  from  the  American  agent  at 
London,  who,  by  the  way,  seems  to  have  admitted  that  he 
knew  almost  nothing  about  hours,  wages,  and  other  work- 
ing conditions  in  the  American  plants.  Naturally  the  man- 
ager was  very  glad  to  be  saving  something  like  $120,000  on 
the  order. 

"All  the  British  steel  works  are  too  busy  to  promise  de- 
livery," a  local  steel  man  replied  when  asked  the  why  of 
the  solitary — and  high — bid. 

With  a  chance  friend  from  India  I  met  on  the  train,  it 
was  interesting  a  few  days  ago  to  run  onto  the  same  old 
idea  about  the  importance  of  the  job  in  all  stations.  When 
we  got  well  acquainted,  he  confided: 

"None  of  my  family  can  understand  why,  with  means 
enough  to  live  on  here  or  anywhere,  I  see  no  pleasure  in  life 
except  doing  such  a  piece  of  work  as  out  there  in  northern 
India  where  I  am  superintending,  just  now,  the  opening  up 
of  some  big  hydroelectric  enterprises  for  the  government. 
They've  been  kind  enough  to  give  me  four  decorations  for 
that  and  other  things.  Earlier  in  my  training  I  worked 
two  years  in  a  Sheffield  coal-mine,  lying  for  the  whole  of 
the  nine-hour  day  on  my  side  in  a  two-foot  seam.  I  guess 
I'm  more  of  a  socialist  than  an  aristocrat. . . .  Anyway,  I'm 
very  fond  of  the  Indian  people.  Our  trouble  there  has  been 
that  our  job  has  been  too  well  done.  The  civil-service  ex- 
ams to  go  out  there  have  put  England's  finest  men  into  the 
work.  They  have  labored  splendidly  and  borne  all  the 
burdens — so  much  so  that  the  Indians  have  gotten  no  idea 
of  the  difficulties  involved  and  so  have  criticised  us  freely. 
The  new  plan  now  will  let  them  in  for  their  share  of  the  job. 
Then  when  they  criticise  the  government  they  will  also  be 


''WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    139 

criticising  their  own  blood  brothers — besides  finding  the  job 
harder  than  it  looks." 

That  seems  to  me  quite  worth  noticing  in  the  case  of  in- 
dustry. The  average  worker  has  no  idea  at  all — especially 
here  in  England — of  any  problems  connected  with  the  man- 
agement. To  him  the  "mawsters"  appear  mere  loafers — 
lucky  loafers.  That's  not  strange  at  all,  seeing  that  the 
managers  have  usually  been  just  about  as  chary  with  their 
information  as  the  ordinary  foreman  who  feels  that  it  is 
his  "know-how"  which  gives  him  his  job  and  therefore  con- 
stitutes his  capital.  Without  knowing  anything  about  the 
difficulties  of  management  the  average  worker  has  little 
enough  desire  to  get  into  them;  he  is  likely  to  have  even  less 
after  he  gets  closer  to  them.  He  is,  at  any  rate,  sure  to  see 
that  they  mean  worry  as  well  as  work.  Most  of  all  he  is 
sure  to  be  impressed  with  the  surprising  extent  to  which 
these  problems  are  shot  through  with  risk — the  risk  which 
usually  goes  with  the  direction  of  capital.  These  gains 
would  certainly  appear  to  make  some  form  of  representa- 
tive dealing  desirable  in  the  average  factory. 

Hope  to  get  away  to-morrow  to  a  cheap  hotel  or  boarding- 
house  where  I  can  put  on  my  old  clothes  as  a  more  regular 
diet  and,  in  a  sense  o'  speakin',  roll  up  my  sleeves  for  the 
finding  of  that  elusive  job. 

Glasgow 
Thursday  night 
August  12. 

It's  queer  how  the  last  two  days — since  leaving  good 
clothes — make  it  all  feel  like  an  entirely  different  town. 
Psychologically,  surely,  it  is  a  very  different  one. 

Inside  a  great  plant  in  a  crowded,  dirty  factory  district, 
the  roar  of  the  dripping  furnaces  and  the  clankety-rumble 
of  the  rolls  made  it  seem  more  like  home.  The  first  chap  I 
ran  into  proved  to  be  a  "dummy."  He  pointed  to  hife  ears 
and  then  showed  me  his  piece  of  chalk  in  his  teeth,  but. 


140  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

because  of  our  common  experiences,  we  had  a  long  con- 
versation about  piece  rates  and  time  rates,  etc.,  without 
needing  anything  more  than  signs.  We  pointed  to  our 
pockets  for  pay,  to  our  watches  for  time,  and  went  through 
a  weighing  motion  with  our  hands  for  indicating  tonnage. 
I  understood  him  perfectly  and  had  a  lot  of  sympathy  for 
him  when  I  saw  by  the  prodigious  face  he  made  that  he  was 
most  unhappy  to  be  himseK  on  "time"  when  all  the  others 
rolling  the  great  ship  plates  were  on  tonnage.  Often  enough 
I  have  felt  the  same  way  myseK !  After  he  had  made  other 
similar  remarks  in  the  way  of  wiping  imaginary  sweat 
from  his  forehead  for  ''registering"  hard  work  and  weari- 
ness, he  did  not  seem  to  feel  that  I  was  properly  appreciat- 
ing the  bad  faces  he  was  making.  So  he  cleaned  off  a  piece 
of  sheet  steel  lying  on  the  floor  and,  with  a  hesitating 
scrawl,  expressed  himself  by  means  of  his  chalk.  From 
his  face  I  could  have  guessed  it;  for,  next  to  "Full  up!"  it 
seems  to  be  the  most  common  expression  over  here — in 
fact,  I'm  sure  it  has  a  very  great  deal  to  do  with  the  whole 
industrial  situation  following  the  war — in  America  as  well 
as  here:  "F-e-d  u-p!"  he  scribbled,  with  a  fiendishly  sour 
face! 

All  the  world  seems  fed  up.  It  is  probably  because  after 
the  hard  strain  of  the  war  we  all  thought  it  would  be  possi- 
ble to  get  back  to  normal  life  again  and  have  a  nice  long 
rest.  And  just  then  the  H.  C.  L.  hit  us  with  the  unexpected 
load  of  additional  hustle  required  in  order  to  keep  up  and 
maintain  our  regular  pre-war  condition.  The  trouble  is 
that  this  load  came  when  the  sUghtest  weight  fell  upon  ex- 
hausted nerves.  It  came  at  a  time  when,  with  our  strength 
gone,  the  "grasshopper  became  a  burden."  "Fed  up" — 
you  hear  it  here  at  all  times.  It  is  not  so  much  that  the 
wear  and  tear  is  so  heavy  as  that  our  margin  of  resistance 
is  so  thin  and  light. 

"It's  all  hand  work  here,"  said  another  worker  as  we 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    141 

watched  the  men  wheelmg  the  big  pieces  of  hot  metal  from 
the  furnaces  to  the  rolls  or  to  the  big  hammer.  I  have  a 
hole  in  my  cap  from  one  of  the  sparks  that  travelled  forty 
feet.  "Over  at  Beardmore's  they  have  three  times  the  ma- 
chinery and  get  more  than  that  amount  of  tonnage  and 
pay — with  less  sweat." 

In  this  same  district  a  young  boy,  who  had  chosen  the 
pubhc-house  bar  as  his  life  job,  said  that  during  the  week 
people  drank  mostly  beer,  but  on  Saturday  nights  it  was 
nearly  all  whiskies  or  whiskies  with  beer. 

"And  on  Friday  afternoons — when  the  men  get  paid  off 
and  we  have  to  serve  them  mainly  whiskies  before  we  close 
at  two-thirty — then  'tis  very  hard  to  give  them  their  wants 
and  at  the  same  time  their  proper  change  for  the  five  poon' 
notes  they  all  pays  wi'." 

"Ye'U  have  to  go  to  the  docks  or  the  shipyards  yerseP! 
We  cawnt'  help  ye,"  the  man  at  the  Labor  Exchange  told 
me  after  I  had  given  my  story  about  my  need  of  work. 
"  'Tis  not  like  America,  where  ye  can  be  given  ony  job  if 
ye  can  'andle  ut.  Hev  ye  got  ony  papers?  .  .  .  Wull, 
there  ye  are !    Try  the  gates,  if  ye  like." 

But  everywhere  it  has  been  a  tale  of  men  being  laid  off  or 
going  for  weeks  with  httle  or  no  work,  especially  on  the 
docks. 

"Lots  o'  them  here,"  said  a  man  who  checks  barrel- 
staves  brought  in  from  Canada  for  factories  here,  "never 
get  more  than  a  half  week's  work  at  most.  But  still  they 
do  na  like  work  too  regular.  Awnd  this  way,  too,  they  are 
very  independent;  if  a  gaffer  is  too  braw  or  uses  bad  lan- 
guage, they  leave  him  and  go  to  another  boat  or  dock — or 
report  him  to  the  union  and  he  gets  a  letter !  .  .  .  Whuskee 
and  bad  livin'  conditions?  Wull,  there  are  mony  here  who 
live  in  these  models  and  lose  all  respect  for  themselves;  awnd 
they  pay  no  taxes  tho  they  have  to  go  to  the  poor-house 
later  and  be  supported  by  us  other  taxpayers.    But  whuskee 


142  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

— ^wuU,  I  tell  'oo,  this  American  whuskee  is  fair  poison. 
Not  till  I  went  to  Canada  did  I  ever  have  a  head  after 
whuskee.  Thot  it  is  thot  makes  so  mony  drunken  ones 
here!" 

So  America  is  to  blame  for  last  Saturday  night ! 

A  couple  of  young  electricians  at  the  table  where  we 
had  a  very  dirty  but  cheap  meal  served  by  the  dockers' 
union  were  very  happy  in  the  long  hours  they  got  every 
so  often — at  "time-and-a-half,"  of  course.  As  usual,  they 
wanted  to  know  the  scale  of  wages  and  the  price  of  board, 
clothes,  laundry,  movies,  etc.,  in  the  States. 

''The  best  job  around  here  is  gettin'  a  'jump'  on  one  o' 
the  boats.  Six  months  oot  and  ye  coom  back  wi'  eighty 
poon'  or  so." 

When,  a  few  hours  later,  I  asked  about  getting  a  "jump" 
or  vacancy  on  the  liner  getting  ready  to  go  to  New  York 
the  fourth  or  fifth  assistant  engineer  exploded: 

"No  bloody  chawnce!  First  ye  moost  have  your  union 
carrd.  An'  if  there  was  one  mon  missin'  when  we  cast  off, 
there'd  be  enough  others  hereaboots  to  carry  the  ship  over 
on  their  bloody  shoulders !  There's  jobs,  yes,  but  too  mony 
people  for  'em!" 

After  puzzUng  why  this  kind  of  opening  for  a  livelihood 
should  be  called  a  "jump,"  a  question  brought  an  answer 
which  makes  it  plain  enough  that  it  couldn't  possibly  be 
called  anything  else ! 

"If  ye  sign  oop  for  the  ship's  crew,  the  place  ye  signed 
for  is  held  for  ye  oop  to  the  minute  the  ropes  is  cawst  off. 
Then  they  calls  oot,  'Two  firemen!'  or  'One  deck-hand!' 
or  perhaps,  'An  oiler!'  Wi'  thot,  ye  joomps  over  onto  the 
deck  awnd  if  ye're  the  first  to  get  there,  the  job's  yours. 
But  if  'twas  ye  thot  signed  oop  and  ye  coom  down  after  the 
'jumps'  is  taken,  w'y,  then  ye're  arrested  for  a  deserter. 
Thot's  the  law." 

One  glance  down  into  the  hold  of  a  big  freighter  from 


''W^T'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    143 

Canada  showed  that  the  men  there  were  tune-workers; 
they  were  sittmg  down  lazily  in  the  thousands  of  bushels  of 
wheat  or  standing  in  them  to  their  knees  and  languidly 
using  big  wooden  shovels  to  push  the  grain  down  to  where 
the  endless  chain  of  scoops  caught  it  up  and  carried  it  out 
to  a  huge  pile  on  the  dock.  With  the  air  thick  with  flying 
chaff,  the  men,  with  their  pants  legs  tied  tight  around  their 
ankles  by  string  to  keep  the  wheat  out  of  their  shoes,  and 
their  mufflers  tucked  close  around  their  necks,  looked  like 
the  unhappy  victims  of  some  queer  kind  of  snow-storm. 

A  glance  showed  with  equal  plainness  that  another 
group  were  working  for  pay  by  results.  A  more  ambitious 
gang  I've  seldom  seen.  It  was  a  sight  to  behold  the  way 
they  shovelled  the  wheat  into  a  small  barrel,  hoisted  it  onto 
the  scales,  emptied  it  and  later  another  into  a  sack,  and 
then  lifted  the  sack  onto  the  shoulders  of  a  strong  man 
who  deftly  dumped  the  two  hundred  pounds  or  so  onto  a 
waiting  wagon.  Everybody  envied  them  for  getting  about 
two  pounds  ten  apiece  for  every  day  they  were  able  to  get 
hold  of  such  a  job. 

It  made  such  a  good  picture  of  combined  skill,  speed, 
sweat,  sleight,  and  muscle — the  day  was  so  far  gone  that 
all  chance  of  a  job  was  gone — that  I  had  to  pull  my  camera 
from  under  my  vest.  Before  I  got  away  I  had  to  promise 
to  send  them  each  a  copy !  It  looks  as  though  we  all  like 
to  see  ourselves  in  our  working  togs  even  more  than  when 
we're  loafing,  even  though  we're  all  diked  out.  (Unfor- 
tunately the  picture  was  not  a  success.) 

Most  of  the  dock  laborers  seem  to  take  turns  with  their 
trucks  in  getting  under  the  loads  of  pipe  or  lumber  or  flour 
that  the  hydraulic  cranes  swing  up  to  them  from  the  ship's 
hatches — with  ordinarily  a  fairly  good  spell  of  loafing  be- 
tween the  turns.  Why  the  contractor  hires  so  many  I 
don't  know.  Half  of  them  would  be  enough.  Two  in  the 
gang  this  afternoon  were  very  drunk. 


144  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

A  labor  member  of  the  city  council  says  this  morning  in 
the  paper  that  in  America  he  found  the  worker  getting 
about  fifty  per  cent  better  wages  than  here,  housing  im- 
mensely better,  no  labor  politics — and  whiskey  everj-where 
as  easy  to  get  as  coffee ! 

*' Absolutely  no  American  whiskey  supplied  here,"  a  pub 
near  the  dock  advertises  I 

On  almost  any  corner  at  any  time  a  man  runs  out  an 
Anti-Rent  Increase  Strike  meeting.  Over  fifty  thousand 
strike  posters  are  said  to  have  been  distributed  for  hanging 
in  windows,  with  another  sixty  thousand  now  on  the  presses. 
"Don't  Pay  Your  Rent !"  they  urge. 

"Glasgow  had  ten  thousand  houses  condemned  as  unfit 
habitation  before  the  war.  They're  all  being  lived  in  to- 
day. Houses  that  would  have  cost  then  250  pounds  will 
now  cost  1,000  pounds.  The  interest  alone  will  therefore 
make  them  rent  at  60.  The  working  class  is  80  per  cent  of 
all,  but  they  get  only  43  per  cent  of  the  income  of  the  coun- 
try. They  can  be  more  powerful  than  the  government 
when  they  make  up  their  minds  to  stick  together.  So  I  beg 
of  you  all  to  go  together  on  strike  on  Monday,  the  23rd !" 

And  now  to  open  up  the  window  of  my  attic  and  try  to 
get  from  my  pillow  a  good  pair  of  eyes  and  ears  for  to- 
morrow. 

Glasgow 
Sunday 
August  15th. 

Most  of  the  educated  people  here  seem  to  think  that 
Glasgow  does  not  deserve  its  reputation  for  extreme  rad- 
icalism, but  the  last  few  days  spent  at  the  gates  of  the 
Clyde  bank  shipyards  and  the  docks  certainly  show  that  a 
very  large  number  of  workers  are  very  sore  at  things  in 
general  and  at  the  "capitalist  class"  in  particular — very 
particular. 

A  respectable-looking  engineer  of  the  better  type  there 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    145 

at  the  noon-hour  loaf  at  one  of  the  largest  yards — ten  thou- 
sand and  more  employees — gave  me  a  shock  day  before 
yesterday. 

"No  trouble  here — except  that  we  should  ha'  awsked  fer 
a  shillin'  an  'our  more  instead  o'  a  tuppence.  And  besides 
all  strikes  are  wrong — ^yes,  this  rent  strike,  too!"  That 
looked  as  though  there  was  at  least  one  conservative! 
"What  they  should  do,"  he  went  on,  "is  to  stick  a  dagger 

into  the  bellies  of  the  bloody s  that  made  the  law  with 

a  note  telUn'  why !  .  .  .  No,  thot  would  na  be  wrong,  nae 
mair  wrong  than  shootin'  a  burglar.  .  .  .  Yes,  and  we  build 
the  ships  here  better  thon  in  England — never  do  oor  rivets 
loosen — and  if  Spain  had  only  had  the  war-ships  we've 
built  here  in  this  yard  alone,  it  could  ha'  wiped  oop  America 
— thot  mony  there  been!  .  .  .  Yes,  Jimmy  Douglas,  the 
foreman,  he's  your  mon — ^ye'U  find  'im  over  there  when  the 
whistle  blows.    A  guid  mon  he  is,  too." 

"Jimmy"  and  others  of  his  kind  were  very  considerate 
when  I  asked  for  a  reamer's  job — driller's,  they  call  it  here 
— at  several  yards  along  the  river  Friday  and  down  at 
Greenoch  yesterday — twenty  miles  down. 

"Materials  is  short — and  they've  laid  off  six  himdred  oop 
at  So  and  So's.  But  'tis  mainly  propaganda — tryin'  to 
break  doon  oor  wages,"  is  the  word  generally  given  by  the 
men  when  you  talk  with  them  at  the  noon-hour  as  they 
stroll  up  to  hear  the  Irish-Scotchman  who  barks  out  like  a 
wild  dog  to  a  few  hundred  of  them  that  "Scottish  troops 
are  in  readiness  to  murder  the  Irish  race,"  and  "The  next 
great  war  will  be  with  America."  "Scottish  workers  must 
start  a  general  strike  now  and  prevent  a  civil  war  and  a 
world  war." 

Perhaps  it  is  because  at  home  men  have  become  over- 
fearful  of  using  strong  language,  while  here  they  let  them 
blow  off  steam  at  any  and  all  places — at  any  rate,  the  whole 
effect  is  certainly  to  make  it  seem  like  a  highly  unrestful 


146  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

place,  especially  seeing  all  the  elaborate  plans  that  are  go- 
ing forward  for  a  big  demonstration  against  the  landlords 
on  the  23rd.  From  most  of  the  workers  I  have  seen  have 
come  amazingly  bitter  words  about  the  law,  considering 
that  the  landlords  were  not  allowed  to  raise  rents  during 
the  war.  There  are  fewer  workers  at  the  factory  gates  than 
at  home,  but  the  line  is  usually  a  fairly  long  one  filing  up  to 
the  counter  in  the  Labor  Exchanges  to  be  certified  as  out  of 
work  for  the  day.  Several  times  I  have  waited  long  in  the 
biggest  line,  or  "queue,"  supposing  that  it  was,  of  course, 
jobs  they  were  after — to  find  later  that  for  a  job  I  had  to 
go  over  to  the  soUtary  clerk  in  the  corner  with  the  small 
group  around  him!  Likely  enough  he  would  not  know 
without  consulting  a  book  somewhere,  such  a  fact  as  the 
current  rate  for  "general  labor"  or  "drillers,"  etc.  Of  the 
big  plants  only  the  one  first  mentioned  seems  to  have  any 
arrangements  for  hiring  other  than  giving  a  chance  to  see 
the  foreman  of  the  particular  department.  This  is  itself  a 
difficult  job;  he  is  ordinarily  seeable  only  at  certain  definite 
moments  before  and  after  the  shift  goes  on — and  those  mo- 
ments are  the  same  at  practically  all  plants.  The  result  is, 
as  it  is  in  America,  a  man  can  make  only  one  guess  for  a 
morning  or  afternoon.  That  does  not  seem  to  work  as 
much  hardship  for  the  worker  here  as  in  America,  mainly 
because  fewer  men  are  fired  or  leave,  and  so  fewer  are  to  be 
hired. 

With  some  of  the  timekeepers  and  other  minor  officials 
it  has  been  possible  to  edge  into  a  conversation  appropri- 
ate to  the  tongue  and  ears  of  a  man  who  "was  gettin'  along 
all  right  in  the  States  and  thought  I'd  have  a  bit  of  a  holi- 
day and  work  my  passage  over  and  am  runnin'  short  of 
money,  d'  ye  see?" 

"Yes,  the  piece-workers  give  a  fair  day,  but  the  time 
men,  like  those  laborers  there  or  those  painters,  well,  they 
just  loaf.    They  don't  deserve  the  name  of  workmen  at  all. 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    147 

To  pass  the  time  somehow  they  just  idle  and  argue  by  the 
hour.  And  the  way  they  can  tell  by  intuition  when  a 
gaffer's  about !  They  fair  smell  him !  And  when  he  comes 
around  they're  so  busy  that  he  thanks  God  that  there's 
such  noble  workers  in  the  British  Isles !  Yes,  they  and  their 
unions  are  goin'  too  far!" 

From  the  newspapers  it  seems  that  everybody — except 
the  local  workers — is  aghast  at  the  Council  of  Action  which 
the  national  union  heads  have  put  up  for  enforcing  labor's 
will  upon  Parliament — indeed,  for  supplanting  Parliament. 
"Down  tools,  every  worker,  before  any  war  with  Russia!" 
The  workers  whom  I  see  seem  to  think  it  all  the  right  idea 
exactly,  though  it  must  be  said  that  many  of  them  don't 
understand  it — except  that  it's  against  the  government — 
that  is,  the  particular  ruUng  party  which  they  hate.  Most 
of  the  reading  of  newspapers,  by  the  way,  appears  to  be 
confined  to  the  sheets  which  give,  every  noon,  the  advice 
for  picking  the  winners  in  the  afternoon  races — those  and 
the  cheap  novels  buyable  in  almost  every  business  block,    i 

"Most  o'  those  chaps  do  nae  work  but  soomhoow  they 
ha'  a  shillin'  or  a  saxpence  for  the  bookies  every  Saturday 
awfternoon,  onyhoow,"  a  laborer  explained  on  the  benches 
in  the  main  square  of  Paisley,  after  I  had  taken  a  look  at 
the  two  huge  and  famous  thread  mills  there.  All  the  idlers 
were  busy  with  their  newspapers — and  then  with  scrawling 
out  the  name  of  their  choice!  "Hoow  it  cooms  thot  ma- 
terials be  slack  wi'  stuff  a-cooming  frae  America  I  do-unt 
know — though  I  do  know  thot  some  o'  these  gaffers  would 
coot  yer  throat  f er  a  hapenny. . . .  Awnd  ye  hae  nae  trade  ? 
.  .  .  WuU,  now,  thot's  bawd.  I  hae  doot  o'  yer  findin' 
worrk." 

The  "definite  threat  and  challenge  to  the  Constitution," 
such  as  the  Council  of  Action  is  called — ^besides  its  other 
names  of  the  "Council  of  Distraction"  and  the  "London 
Soviet " — is  not  likely  to  sit  very  heavily  on  the  minds  of  such 


148  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

workers.  The  craftsmen  of  a  better  sort  are  not  so  easy  to 
come  into  contact  with;  they  are  the  ones,  I  presume,  whose 
level-headedness  is  counted  upon,  as  usual,  to  save  the  coun- 
try from  the  extremists.  But  at  least  it  would  look  as  though 
these  last  are  very  numerous.  Also  that  the  group  of  those 
who  are  too  far  down  the  ladder  of  decency  and  self-respect 
to  care  what  happens  and  who,  therefore,  constitute  a  sort 
of  balance  of  power — evil  power — in  a  crisis,  is  beyond  all 
peradventure  amazingly  large  here.  Whether  it  is  mainly 
Irish,  as  some  say,  I  can't  tell.  This  crowd  it  is  that  comes 
into  its  own  on  Friday  afternoons  and  Saturday  nights. 

Last  night  a  poHceman  in  Cowcaddens  exploded  with  his 
"There's  a  doozen  districts — and  more — ^joost  as  bawd!" 
when  asked  if  I  had  already  seen  the  worst  on  my  adven- 
tures of  a  week  ago.  He  certainly  was  right — at  least  to 
the  extent  of  the  four  or  five  different  districts  I  proceeded 
to  visit  in  line  with  his  directions. 

It's  not  worth  while  trying  to  describe  the  various  scenes, 
other  than  to  say  that  the  whole  city,  more  or  less,  seemed 
to  be  trying  to  go  Cowcaddens  one  better.  Everywhere — 
even  in  the  very  centre  of  the  city — it  was  a  mass  of  stag- 
gering, singing,  swearing,  laughing  men  and  women  and 
boys  and  girls  interspersed  with  men  with  puff-adder  necks 
— ^playing  bagpipes  or  flutes  or  kneading  accordians  for  the 
coppers  of  the  passers-by,  or  standing  in  the  middle  of  the 
road  singing  with  all  their  drunken  might  and  bloated 
pride.  As  you  walk — especially  in  the  less-lighted  sections 
— ^it  is  necessary  to  watch  carefully  to  keep  from  stepping 
into  the  vomitings  of  the  earlier  home  goers!  On  the  car 
you  pass  this  man  or  woman  reeling  along  or  see  this  man 
making  overpoUte  bows  while  the  young  lady  edges  away 
— or  laughs  at  him  mockingly — ^while  other  bolder  and  more 
fortunate  Don  Juans  wrestle  with  their  sweethearts  in  what 
looks  like  a  cross  between  caressing  and  boxing.  When  the 
man  in  the  seat  behind  you  leans  forward  and  puts  his  head 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    149 

onto  your  back,  you  think  of  the  sHppery  sidewalks  and  of 
the  scarcity  of  your  coats — and  change  your  seat  hur- 
riedly! Whereupon  you  attract  the  attention  of  a  well- 
dressed  and  keen-faced  ''artisan"  who  draws  himself  up  in 
the  inebriated  certainty  of  his  splendid — though  befuddled 
— mentality,  and  his  expressive,  though  unruly,  tongue,  and 
asks  you  with  great  solenmity: 

"W'y  do  we  'awve  a  bloody  parasite  like  the  King?  A 
bleedin'  loafer  'e  is !    'Tis  the  capitalists  thot  own  us  workin' 

clawss  like  slaves — but  they  do  nae  feed  oos.    The ! ! " 

.  .  .  [Here  the  young  ladies  are  forced  to  go  out.]  "But, 
God  lunmae,  'twas  Bobbie  Burns  thot  hae  soong,  'A  mon's 
a  mon  for  a'  thot!'  " 

"When  my  turn  cooms  fer  Saturday  night  'tis  fed  up  I 
get  wi'  all  this,"  says  the  serious  and  hard-working — and 
fairly  pretty — girl  conductor  who  has  held  onto  her  job 
since  war  days. 

When  you  get  home  and  go  up  to  your  attic  you  hear 
cries,  shouts,  and  screams  coming  from  a  near-by  slum — 
for  I'm  living  in  Cowcaddens — and  as  you  go  to  sleep  you 
wonder  whether  the  sharp  staccato  of  the  clanging  bell 
means  the  arrival  of  the  ambulance  or  the  undertaker's 


wagon 


All  that  makes  it  disheartening  to  go  to  the  Green  this 
afternoon  and  find  that  the  big  crowd  you  hoped  was  the 
advertised  prohibition  or  no-hcense  meeting  proves  to  be 
the  usual  Hibernian  protest !  Later,  the  few  who  do  come 
to  the  meeting  of  the  Prohibitionists  hear  some  very  differ- 
ent speeches.  Everywhere  it  is  said  that  the  churches  take 
little  interest  in  local  option,  partly  because  many  priests 
and  pastors  have  taken  the  recommendations  of  the  pub- 
licans— ^brewers  and  distillers — in  their  congregations  to 
get  large  incomes  on  their  brewery  or  distillery  investments. 
It  appears  pretty  certain — in  Hne  with  the  claims  of  the 
speakers — that  many  pastors  and  others  are  unwiUing  to 


150  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

risk  offending  their  influential  friends  by  signing  the  pe- 
tition for  a  vote.  All  sorts  of  educated  people  here — and 
also  in  Wales — seem  to  beheve  that  the  government  gets 
too  much  revenue  out  of  'Hhe  trade,"  to  be  able  to  nm 
without  it — and  everybody,  apparently,  has  the  idea  that 
alcohol  is  a  food.  ''Drink  two  quarts  of  good  beer  every 
day  for  a  year  and  besides  maintaining  your  health  you 
contribute  twenty-five  pounds  to  your  government" — not 
to  mention  another  thirty  to  the  brewers  in  a  country  that 
strikes  against  the  raising  of  rents,  most  of  which  are  much 
less  than  twenty  or  twenty-five  pounds  a  year. 

Am  hoping  for  an  early  chance  at  a  few  foremen  to-morrow 
and,  with  good  luck,  a  pneumatic  drill  in  my  hand  and  a 
lot  of  Scotch  burrs  on  interesting  subjects  in  my  ears ! 

Glasgow, 

Tuesday,  August  17th. 

Last  night  at  10.45  in  the  big  dockyard  the  prospect 
was  good  for  a  job  rustling  freight.  According  to  my 
docker  pals  of  the  day,  it  was  easy  for  even  an  ''unbadged" 
or  non-union  man  to  find  work  on  the  night  shift  when 
boats  happened  to  be  working,  as  they  would  be.  ''Joost 
be  there  before  the  shift  goes  on  at  eleven !"  But  my  heart 
soon  sank  as  I  saw  a  score  and  more  of  quiet  figures  leaning 
against  the  gaffer's  shanty  in  the  shadows.  When  a  long 
half-hour  dragged  by  in  silence — men  never  seem  to  talk 
much  when  this  question  of  job  or  no  job  is  in  suspense — 
and  a  number  had  come  up  jobless  from  the  other  boat,  the 
only  proper  thing  seemed  to  be  to  give  it  up,  though  a  few 
did  stick  around  against  hope. 

"Ye  cawn  never  tell  thot,  Jock !"  one  of  the  silent  shadows 
said  in  surprise  when  I  asked  what  chance  there  would  be. 

"It's  mebbe  a  fortnight  and  nae  work  fer  an  oor  and  then 
long  oors  and  extra  pay  fer  a  fortnight,"  several  others  had 
said  that  morning,  some  in  anger  and  others  not.     It  is 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    151 

said  that  the  union  has  so  far  refused  to  enter  into  a  pro- 
posed arrangement  whereby  all  the  docks  would  get  work- 
ers through  a  central  clearing  station  each  day  as  the  ships 
arrived.  At  this  central  station  all  the  workers  would  wait 
until  'phoned  for.  The  reason  for  the  opposition  is  that 
the  worker  at  the  metal  dock  does  not  want  to  take  the 
chance  of  being  called  to  work  at  a  wheat  dock,  for  instance, 
and  then  perhaps  miss  his  chance  at  a  metal  cargo  when  it 
comes  in  shortly  after.  He  is  sure  of  his  abihty  to  earn  high 
with  his  skill  in  handling  metal  but  is  not  certain  how  much 
he  can  earn  with  other  cargoes.  Now,  however,  that  the 
dockers  are  to  come  under  the  unemployment  insurance, 
something  of  the  sort  will,  without  doubt,  have  to  be  worked 
out. 

"It's  awl  accordin'  to  the  'orses,"  was  the  surprising 
answer  from  one  of  the  men  in  a  gang  working  like  mad — 
on  piece  rates,  of  course — weighing  the  wheat,  shding  it 
down  the  chutes  onto  wagons  which  took  it  out  to  the  tracks 
and  then  carrying  it  on  their  shoulders  with  quick  steps 
from  the  wagons  up  steep  planks  onto  the  railway  cars  or 
"trucks."  Of  course,  when  the  indispensable  horses  and 
their  wagons  did  not  come  in  quick  succession,  the  whole 
operation  stopped  and  all  the  men  lost  their  chance  at  their 
possible  maximum  of  fifty  shillings  or  more  for  the  turn. 

If  paid  in  exact  proportion  to  the  energy  they  expend  as 
compared  with  the  regular — and  exceedingly  leisurely — 
sixteen-shillings-a-turn  day  workers  these  sweating  hustlers 
should  get  even  more ! 

"Ye  cawn  see  the  gaffer  this  noon,"  was  all  the  satisfac- 
tion I  could  get  at  the  entrance  of  a  big  shipyard  yester- 
day morning  early.  As  I  loafed  about,  debating  what  to  do, 
a  number  of  boys  came  running  down  the  street  and  dashed 
through  the  gate.  It  certainly  looked  as  though  they  had 
been  late  for  the  whistle  and  were  very  anxious  to  get  to 
their  tools  and  hard  at  the  job.    But  the  guard  had  evi- 


152  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

dently  seen  the  trick  before.  To  my  amazement,  he  caught 
them  by  the  collar,  one  by  one,  and  pushed  them  out  into 
the  gang  of  us  as  impostors!  They  were  only  trying  to 
break  through  to  a  gaffer  in  working  hours  in  the  hope  of 
being  "set  on."  At  noon  the  gaffer  held  a  sort  of  office 
into  which  we  all  went  one  by  one — after  we  had  hiked  up 
our  coats,  put  our  hats  on  more  firmly,  straightened  up  our 
shoulders  and,  finally,  with  a  full  head  of  courage,  walked 
boldly  in  to  him  to  ask:  "Wot  about  a  chawnce,  sir?"  All 
in  vain!  He  turned  us  all  down  with  his:  "Full  up!  Full 
up!    Full  up,  I  tell  you!" 

"Over  in  France  'twas,  'We'll  take  care  o'  ye' — and  not 

a job  the  noow!    Look  ut  these  girls  here!    Awfter 

oor  jobs,  they  are!  Uf  they're  widows,  righto.  Uf  not — 
oot  wi'  um!  Every  one — every  widow,  ye  oonderstand — 
should  hae  a  band  on  her  arm  to  show.  Awnd  these  Sinn 
Feiners — why  dinna  they  go  hoom  to  help  their  coose? 
They  coom  here  by  boatloads,  d'  ye  ken,  when  we  was  fight- 
in' — awnd  when  they  refused  conscription — awnd  they  hae 
oor  jobs  the  noow!  Awnd  here  they  talk  and  talk.  But 
go  hoom  foor  their  coose,  they  will  na!"  That  was  the 
kind  of  remark  passed  around  when  one  by  one  we  had 
come  out  from  the  little  office  loaded — and  unhappy — with 
our  individual  portions  of  the  universal  "Full  up!" 

"This government — 'tis  all  ut's  fault.    Dynamite! 

I  gi'  ut  to  ye  in  a  nutshell — we  should  blow  oop  the  House  o' 
Parlyment.  .  .  .  Av  coorse  they're  afraid  on  us — that  we 
woo-od  massacrate  um!    Awnd  thot  we  shoo-od!" 

With  an  intelligent  but  long  jobless  and  much  worried 
young  electrician — recently  married — I  went  over  to  the 
docks  to  find  "if  mebbe,  I  can  get  back  home  on  a  ship." 
The  engineer  of  the  American  boat  we  tackled  has  evi- 
dently suffered: 

"No,  not  on  your  life!  Every  bunk's  full — stokers  and 
all.     And  anyway,  I  wouldn't  take  you  unless  the  Consul 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    153 

here  could  tell  me  all  about  you.  I'm  sick  of  this  way  you 
young  American  fellows  are  coming  over  here,  getting 
drunk,  disgracing  your  country  and  your  flag,  leaving  your 
ship's  officers  in  the  lurch — and  then  coming  like  this  to 
some  other  ship  with  a  hard-luck  story.  You  oughta  be 
ashamed  of  yourself!    Nothing  doing!" 

I  slunk  away  in  disgrace.  It's  easy  to  imagine  that  he's 
not  happy  about  prohibition.  It  certainly  is  hard  to  keep 
our  attitudes  and  opinions  from  being  the  reverse  side  of 
the  current  coin  of  our  experience  from  day  to  day.  As 
with  him,  so  with  a  companion  on  the  tram  this  afternoon 
who  broke  into  the  argument  several  of  us  started: 

"Let  me  tell  you  why  I  nae  cawn  eat  this  frozen  meat 
they  try  to  bring  frae  America  to  make  oor  livin'  less  dear. 
When  I  was  a  lad  I  was  a  farm  servant.  We  had  none  o' 
all  this  goovemment  inspection  thot  makes  all  so  costly. 
Oor  mawster — a  gentleman  farmer  he  was — never  had  a 
sheep  die  o'  ony  disease  but  he  coots  its  throat  and  sticks 
it  into  the  brime  (brine)  foor  oos  servants.  It  made  ye 
sick  once — and  then  ye  never  ate  it  again — but  bread  and 
taties  instead.  So  I'm  afeard  o'  ony  but  fresh  meat  the 
noow." 

When  we  came  to  the  bridge  a  great  crowd  was  at  the 
railing  watching  some  men  in  boats.  They  were  dragging 
the  bottom  for  the  bodies  of  two  suicides  of  the  night  before. 

"There's  George  now!"  a  fine-looking  young  fellow  said 
— he  had  earUer  wanted  me,  if  ever  I  should  see  him,  to 
thank  Captain  St.  John,  an  American  physician,  for  saving 
his  life  by  his  new  treatment  for  mustard-gas  victims.  "Why, 
George  is  the  Humane  Society  man.  His  life  job  has  been 
keeping  the  boats  and  grappling-irons  for  finding  bodies 
at  this  place.  'Tis  a  great  place  for  suicides.  He's  wonder- 
ful at  finding  them,  too — almost  by  instinct !  It  often  seems 
as  though  he  could  smell  a  body !  Of  course,  he's  been  at 
it  all  his  life.    You  §e?  his  father  had  the  same  job  before  himJ^ 


154  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Somehow  it's  hard  to  like- — or  "fawncy,"  as  we  Welsh 
would  say — a  town  that  keeps  two  generations  busy  on  a 
job  like  that  within  a  hundred  yards  of  its  main  corner! 
But  it's  not  surprising  that  George  comes  in  to  add  himself 
to  the  other  three  chaps  I've  been  rubbing  shoulders  with 
— rum,  revolution,  and  the  one  and  two  room  homes.  It 
should  be  added,  also,  that  there  are  over  600  cases  of 
small-pox  going  around  right  in  our  midst — ^mostly  in  such 
districts  as  Cowcaddens ! 

"Isn't  that  a  pretty  dish  to  set  before  the  King!'* 

I  wonder  what  he  thinks — or  knows — about  it,  by  the 
way. 

A  day  or  two  more  will  about  do. 

Glasgow, 

Thursday  night,  August  19th. 

Well,  it  looks  like  things  were  getting  a  Uttle  plainer. 

For  one  thing,  the  bailie,  or  town  councillor,  who  has 
just  returned  from  America,  did  my  heart  good  by  telling 
one  of  his  fellow  Socialist  town  councillors — I  was  calling 
on  them  both  there  at  the  city  hall: 

''Why,  there's  no  doubt  at  all  but  they've  got  a  standard 
of  living  over  there  in  America  not  less  than  fifty  per  cent 
higher  than  our  workers  here — with  wages  not  less  than 
seventy-five  per  cent  higher.  And  every  decent  worker  with 
not  less  than  four  to  six  rooms  in  a  detached  house  with  a 
porch  and  all — and  nice  streets  to  walk  down,  with  grass 
along  the  cm-b !  Maybe  shade  trees  in  the  middle  arching 
over !  And  a  motor-car  sitting  out  in  front  or  in  the  back 
yard !  Why,  my  God,  when  I  tell  them  about  it  here,  my 
friends  think  I'm  romancing!  And  here  we  are  with  40,- 
000  families  in  one-room  apartments — that's  120,000  peo- 
ple! And  600,000  people  in  not  more  than  two-room 
homes !  And  nobody  in  town  with  a  porch — and  our  upper 
middle  class  less  well  off  in  all  ways  than  their  working 


^'WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    155 

men,  so  far  as  I  saw  them.  .  .  .  Why,  once  we  had  a  Social- 
ist choir  of  girls  here.  They  took  the  national  prize  one 
year.  The  next  year  they  lost.  'Twas  because  they 
couldn't  sing  a  song  about  a  forest  as  well  as  some  chil- 
dren could  that  came  from  the  Highlands !  Why,  the  poor 
things  had  never  seen  a  forest!  I  suppose  they  thought 
maybe  it  was  some  kind  of  a  'close'  (tenement  stairway 
passage)." 

His  friend  was  pretty  surely  telling  about  one  of  the  re- 
sults of  all  this  when  as  one  of  the  heads  of  the  Labor  Party 
here  he  explained  later: 

"We  Sociahsts  think  the  Soviet  is  nothing  but  the  nat- 
ural result  of  the  average  individual  citizen  becoming 
more  intelhgent  as  the  result  of  years  of  democracy — and 
so  having  to  give  less  authority  to  the  state  or  centralized 
government.  In  some  modified  form  that's  quite  likely  to 
follow  from  the  work  we  do  in  selling  as  many  as  5,000 
copies  of  a  new  history  of  the  Scottish  labor  movement, 
even  before  it  is  printed — all  to  our  Socialist  working-men 
customers — the  men  who  live  under  these  bad  conditions. 
With  such  men  who  make  up  our  constituency  now  we 
don't  discuss  SociaUst  principles  any  more;  we  just  teach 
and  train  them  in  the  technical  side  of  the  practical  pro- 
gramme of  SociaHsm  for  making  these  conditions  fairer  and 
better  for  the  masses.  Some  of  the  converts  we  send  into 
the  unions  to  be  leaders  there,  others  into  pohtics — all  ac- 
cording to  their  talents  after  these  have  been  carefully 
studied  by  us.  Others  we  put  into  the  co-operative  move- 
ment. That  movement  sells  now  to  as  many  as  half  of 
the  famiUes  of  Glasgow.  It's  all  under  the  management  of 
six  men  elected  by  the  city's  shoemakers,  plumbers,  steel 
workers,  etc.  We  think  we  have  to  do  all  that,  you  see, 
because  the  central  government — the  one  that  heads  up  in 
Edinburgh  and  London — ^withholds  big  grants  to  educa- 
tion in  Glasgow  unless  we  use  their  books  and  courses  and 


156  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

these  tell  them  that  every  boy  has  a  chance  to  be  an  Andrew 
Carnegie  and  that  the  affair  of  1776  was  a  sort  of  Bolshe- 
vik uprising.  Then,  too,  they  withhold  grants  to  our  pohce 
unless  they  can  control  them." 

Much  additional  light  came  also  from  attending  a  meet- 
ing of  the  Glasgow  Trades  Council  last  night.  It  was  a 
highly  representative  and  thoroughly  orderly  affair,  with 
some  very  intelligent  men  in  attendance,  including  the  two 
or  three  who  reported  progress  for  the  strike  of  the  local 
musicians.  All  the  representatives  of  the  city's  350  locals 
of  the  various  labor  unions  and  of  twenty-one  branches  of 
the  Independent  Labor  Party  listened  with  great  interest  to 
the  "brother  and  comrade"  who  came  from  North  Ireland 
to  sohcit  funds  for  the  striking  linen  workers.  All  appeared 
very  generally  in  favor,  too,  of  making  a  great  success  of 
the  plans  for  the  general  strike  on  the  next  Monday.  "And, 
mind,  the  procession  will  move  whether  we're  given  per- 
mission by  the  city  or  no!"  The  business  was  conducted 
with  most  exemplary  expedition  and  decorum.  Here  as 
well  as  at  home  the  average  union  member  can  give  the 
average  citizen  points  on  parhamentary  procedure  and 
then  beat  him  to  a  frazzle!  But  it  was  perfectly  evident 
that  the  Conservatives  who  were  in  attendance  had  Kttle 
show  and  less  courage.  The  report  of  the  official  who  had 
just  been  up  to  London  and  in  touch  with  the  national 
leaders  was  given  cheers  when  he  stated  that  in  his  opinion 
"Mr.  J.  Facing-both-ways  Thomas"  had  been  finally 
brought  down  off  the  fence  and  could  now  be  counted  among 
the  radicals.  So,  after  duly  extended  and  enthusiastic  com- 
ment on  the  fact  that  labor  had  never  in  the  history  of  the 
movement  been  so  united  as  now  in  its  fight  against  war, 
the  crowd  took  appropriate  steps  in  full  preparation  for 
enforcing  the  proposed  nation-wide  general  strike  and  for 
setting  up  the  Glasgow  Soviet  to  act  on  the  orders  of  the 
National  Council  of  Action  the  instant  the  government 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    157 

should  make  bold  to  begin  war  with  Russia  in  defiance  of 
the  wishes  of  British  labor.  What  opposition  there  was  to 
this  was  effectually  overcome  by  the  contention  that  tech- 
nically the  plan  was  a  purely  emergency  measure  and  would 
give  way  to  ordinary  governmental  and  unionistic  institu- 
tions shortly  after  the  country  had  been  properly  paralyzed, 
the  war  made  impossible,  and  the  decisive  power  of  the 
worker  fully  demonstrated.  In  the  same  breath,  however, 
the  radicals,  while  granting  the  point  technically,  gave 
plenty  of  evidence  that  in  their  opinion,  ordinary  govern- 
ment wouldn't  get  a  show  in  a  long  time,  if  ever  again,  once 
the  National  Council  and  the  local  labor  groups  were  in  the 
saddle. 

One  of  the  more  conservative  men  in  the  meeting  proved 
to  be  with  the  Workmen's  Educational  Alliance,  which 
tries  to  bring  to  the  workers  all  over  the  country  the  teach- 
ings of  ordinary  economics  and  other  subjects  at  the  hands 
of  very  good  instructors.  One  of  the  meeting's  more  rad- 
ical leaders  is  with  the  Labor  College,  a  similarly  national 
enterprise  for  working-man  instruction  but  more  in  the 
sense  of  class  propaganda  than  education,  since  it  is  devoted 
to  the  spread  of  the  Marxian  doctrine  of  inevitable  class 
conflict.  This  latter  school  here  enrolls  about  one  thousand 
students.  In  very  friendly  relation  with  it  is  the  barking 
haranguer  of  factory  crowds  heard  the  other  day  at  the 
shipyard's  gate — ^he's  called  the  "Sinn  Fein  Consul  to 
Glasgow."  He  certainly  supports  the  claim  of  those  who 
say  that  the  Irish  are  at  the  bottom  of  much  of  the  trouble 
here.  He  was  with  the  Labor  College  secretary  when  I 
called: 

"If  England  doesn't  recognize  the  Irish  Republic  soon, 
then  we  have  our  biggest  card  still  to  play.  That's  war  be- 
tween Britain  and  America !  We  have  the  whole  programme 
laid  out — with  all  the  sore  points  ready  to  our  hands. 
'Twill  be  the  thing  to  put  the  British  Uon  on  his  back — 


158  FULL  UP  AND   FED  UP 

and,  of  course,  'twill  wreck  America,  too.  But  'twill  bring 
the  freedom  of  Ireland.    And  it's  next  on  the  programme ! " 

It  was  hard  work  to  keep  from  striking  him !  I'm  sorry 
now  that  I  felt  it  necessary  to  leave  in  order  to  hang  onto  a 
proper  control  of  hands  and  tongue.  The  cold-blooded 
fiendishness  of  the  plan  of  the  man — and,  evidently,  of  his 
friends — equals  or  excels  anything  the  Germans  were  able 
to  imagine.  Naturally,  it  makes  a  man  wonder  if  a  large 
part  of  it  should  not  bear  the  ''Made  in  Germany"  label. 
Certainly  no  plan  could  possibly  bring  greater  satisfaction 
to  the  enemies  of  Britain,  whether  in  Ireland,  Germany,  or 
Russia.  Certainly,  too,  each  day's  transpirings  appear 
more  and  more  to  one  over  here  to  represent  not  so  much  a 
war  for  Ireland  as  a  general  and  all  but  world-wide  campaign 
against  the  British  Empire. 

But,  without  doubt,  also,  men  could  easily  be  instigated 
to  most  anything  if  they  must  live  among  the  thousands 
who  rent  those  dreadful  one-room  apartments  such  as  I 
visited.  In  one  of  them  I  saw  a  woman  preparing  a  meal 
on  the  combined  kitchen,  dining-room,  and  parlor  table. 
The  husband  lay  on  a  high  bed  and  was  cursing  everybody 
from  the  landlord  up.  The  bed  was  quite  high — so  as  to 
give  a  place  underneath  for  the  children  to  stand  up  before 
they  went  to  sleep  on  the  floor!  There  were  no  clothes 
or  baggage  of  any  kind  in  sight.  A  broken  toilet  served 
three  families;  a  single  tiny  faucet,  or  tap,  and  sink  out 
on  the  stairs  between  floors  had  to  serve  six  famiUes !  All 
the  washing  of  the  three  families  hangs  out  in  the  passage- 
way or  "close,"  because  there  is  no  outdoor  portico  of  any 
kind — ^nothing  but  the  squalor  of  a  stone  building  nearly 
a  hundred  years  old.  All  at  "nine  bob"  a  week — or,  ordi- 
narily, ten  dollars  a  month !  If  it  couldn't  be  guaranteed  to 
drive  a  man — or  a  woman — to  drink,  I  don't  know  what 
could !  As  a  matter  of  fact  the  death-rate  of  these  places 
is  reported  as  almost  exactly  twice  that  in  roomier  and  newer 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?''    159 

quarters!  The  citizen  nods  about  their  badness  but  adds 
that  we  ought  to  have  seen  what  the  city  could  have  shown 
before  the  health  department  got  busy  a  few  decades  ago  I 
The  result  of  all  so  far  seen  and  heard  would  look  about 
like  this — subject  to  further  seeings  and  hearings  later  on: 

1.  Nothing — neither  higher  wages,  continuously  suc- 
cessful municipal  operation  of  the  tramways  and  various 
other  enterprises  of  which  the  Socialist  councillors  like  to 
boast,  nor  even  better  treatment  of  the  workers  at  the  fac- 
tories by  means  of  shop  committees  or  councils — nothing 
will  avail  to  make  Glasgow  peaceful,  prosperous,  and  happy 
as  long  as  the  housing  conditions  are  as  bad  as  they  are. 
Nor  as  long — and  of  the  two  this  is  much  the  more  impor- 
tant— nor  as  long  as  so  large  a  proportion  of  the  city's 
workers  suffer  from  the  unsteadiness  of  the  job  for  which 
both  shipbuilding  and  docking  are  noted.  The  whole  place 
is  suffering  from  a  hard  and  chronic  case  of  the  intermit- 
tent chills  and  fever  of  job-and-no-job,  complicated  by  the 
"Tiredness  and  Temper"  bred  in  the  darkness  of  those 
aged  one  and  two  room  tenements. 

2.  It  is  inconceivable  that  prohibition  could  ever  be 
made  effective  so  long  as  these  two  underljdng  conditions 
obtain.  Nor  until,  also,  a  long  educational  campaign  has 
been  gone  into.  (The  connection  between  such  bad  con- 
ditions and  John  Barleycorn  was  pointed  out  by  one  of 
my  near-down-and-out  companions  in  the  neighborhood  of 
some  bad  lumber  camps:  "The  drunker  ye  be  the  less  ye' 11 
be  a-mindin'  of  the  flies  and  bugs.  And  when  ye  sober  up, 
ye're  used  to  'em.    See?") 

3.  The  local  "Captains  of  Industry  "  will  be  disappointed 
with  the  results  of  their  embryo  "welfare"  enterprises — 
and  probably,  as  a  result,  very  sore  with  their  workers — 
until  they  can  help  the  city  to  improve  the  housing  con- 
ditions and  regularize,  at  least  to  a  considerable  extent,  the 
Clyde  bank's  jobs. 


160  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

4.  A  considerable  part  of  the  planning  of  the  leaders  of 
the  national  unions  and  the  Council  of  Action,  as  well  as  of 
the  local  Anti-Rent  Strike  is  definitely  political.  ''If  our 
present  unity  can  be  maintained  .  .  .  the  Labor  Party 
will  come  into  power,"  says  one  of  the  ''London  Soviet" 
leaders.  "A  successful  strike  here  next  Monday  should 
elect  several  more  Sociahst  city  councilmen,"  says  one  of 
the  oflficials  of  the  Glasgow  Trades  Council. 

5.  In  my  opinion  America  is  most  fortunate  in  Mr. 
Gompers's  unfriendliness  to  the  organization  of  a  labor 
party.  Certainly  the  American  worker  without  it  is  much 
better  off  than  the  British  worker  with  it.  But  "Sam" 
may  change  his  view  if  he  comes  to  beheve  that  American 
employers  are  organizing  to  break  up  his  organization  in- 
dustrially. Then  we  shall  probably  be  in  for  such  con- 
stant and  acute  uproar  as  they  have  here.  As  here,  the 
workers  will  fight  now  with  the  strike  and  other  industrial 
weapons  to  gain  political  ends  and  then,  the  next  day,  use 
poUtical  weapons  to  gain  industrial  ends. 

6.  As  explained  by  a  very  intelligent  young  woman  con- 
nected with  a  social-service  enterprise  and  a  leader  among 
the  Socialists,  such  demonstrations  as  that  planned  for 
Monday  furnish  the  only  way  of  getting  any  kind  of  ac- 
tion out  of  the  city's  submerged  thousands.  "You  see, 
they  are  too  drunken  and  ignorant — too  propertyless  and 
hopeless — to  understand  us  when  we  try  to  tell  them  the 
causes  of  their  misery — or  to  care  to  make  any  efifort  to- 
ward their  own  betterment.  But  if  we  can  get  them  to 
take  action  in  the  form  of  a  one-day  strike,  then  that  makes 
it  easier  to  get  them  to  vote,  a  few  weeks  later,  to  do  away 
with  the  system  which  permits  their  degradation." 

According  to  that,  any  wise  group  of  citizens  or  owners 
in  any  state  or  city  anxious  to  make  the  established  order 
of  society  work  successfully,  should  try  even  to  force  upon 
its  submerged  thousands  the  enjoyment  of  such  practical 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    161 

properties  as  steady  jobs,  decent  homes,  maximum  oppor- 
tunities, and  other  things  worth  conserving.  Such  citizens 
could  be  pretty  sure  that  such  conservings  would  not  fail 
to  make  their  possessors  conserve. 

7.  Just  how  it  comes  about  that  the  chief  centre  of  a 
country  noted  for  its  religious  scruples  and  its  sectarian 
grit  and  backbone  should  also  be  famous  for  its  degrada- 
tion and  radicalism  is  open  to  anybody's  guess.  My  own 
is  that  the  situation  is  much  the  same  as  in  some  of  the 
Pennsylvania  steel  towns  where  the  good  Scotch  Presby- 
terians get  quite  "het  up"  over  Sunday  movies  but  trouble 
apparently  very  Uttle  over  twelve,  eighteen,  and  twenty- 
four  hour  shifts  for  the  population's  thousands.  But,  after 
all,  I  suppose  most  of  us  had  better  go  easy  with  the  casting 
of  the  first  stone,  considering  how  slow  we  have  all  been  to 
see  the  close  connection  between  men's  bodies,  their  daily 
job,  and  not  only  their  daily  bread  but  also  their  daily 
doings,  dreamings,  and  dogmatizings. 


Hope  to  make  Edinburgh  to-night  and  to-morrow  begin 
in  Middlesbrough  another  episode. 

Middlesbrough,  Newcastle  District, 
Sunday,  August  22nd. 

"Fed  up!"  Those  were  the  words  in  my  mouth — and 
mind  and  body — this  morning  on  getting  out  of  bed  after 
the  usual  "morning  exercises"  (highly  recommended  for 
eye  and  hand)  of  hunting  fleas  and  other  beasties.  In  spite 
of  my  momentary  elation  following  the  complete  success 
of  a  very  speedy  and  well-executed  "enveloping  movement" 
on  Mr.  Flea,  "Fed  up"  certainly  described  my  state  of 
mind  as  I  contemplated  the  very  dirty  and  much  torn  sheets 
and  pillow-cases,  the  ancient  and  abbreviated  hand-towel 
left  by  the  last  "guest,"  and  the  broken  window-panes 


162  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

scattered  in  pieces  on  the  floor,  with  the  weather  cold  enough 
for  snow ! 

When  I  asked  about  fresh  sheets  last  night,  the  maid  an- 
swered: ''Oh,  we  never  take  only  respectable  people,  so 
it's  quite  all  right."  Later  a  huge  South  African  negro 
laborer  proved  to  be  one  of  the  boarders  in  good  standing. 

Even  at  that  the  boarding-house  is  a  lot  better  than  the 
one  to  which  a  policeman  took  me  in  the  rain  last  evening — 
where  a  bed  could  be  had  for  two  shillings,  in  the  same  small 
room  with  seven  very  tough-looking  white  and  black,  Eng- 
lish and  foreign,  ship  and  steel  workers.  As  a  matter  of 
fact,  this  seems  the  best  in  the  town  that  will  permit  the 
kind  of  clothes  necessary  for  covering  the  ground  getting 
the  contacts  desired.  As  it  is,  and  in  spite  of  my  tough 
appearance,  a  boiler-maker — a  rough  and  low  type  of 
fellow  he  certainly  was — nearly  spotted  me  last  night  in 
a  pub. 

"If  Hi  wuz  you,  Hi'd  walk  right  in  ter  see  the  fountain- 
'ead  o'  these  steel  works  'ere,  and  sye,  'Hi  wants  ter  see  the 
manager!' — just  like  thot,"  he  counselled  when  we  first 
started  talking.  "With  wot  ye've  done  in  Hamerica,  ye'll 
get  on  fine  'ere." 

We  got  along  well  together,  though  he  seemed  to  have 
trouble  to  place  me.    Finally  he  explained: 

"Now  ye  asked  me  a  w'ile  back  ter  'ave  a  pint  with  yer, 
didn't  ye? — yuss — and  I  said  'No,'  didn't  I? — yus — ^wuU, 
thot  wor  becuz  Hi  wuz  considerin'.  Yer  see.  Hi  alius  mikes 
it  a  rule  never  ter  'ave  a  pint  with  a  stringe  mon  right  ofif 
like  without  considerin'.  WuU  .  .  .  wull .  .  .  wull,  now  Hi've 
considered !  'Ere,  miss,  tike  our  order !  Yuss,  a  pint  o' 
bitters  awnd  'arf  a  pint  o'  mild  !  Thot's  it.  Wull,  cheerio ! 
Awnd  a  good  phce  fer  ye  on  Monday ! " 

Then,  to  return  coiui;esies  he  called  his  friend:  '"Ere, 
Bill !  'Ere's  a  young  feller  from  Hamerica  and  'e's  tellin' 
me — now  wuzn't  yer  tellin'  me?    Didn't  Hi  sye  ter  ye — a 


''WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    163 

moment  ago,  like. .  .  .  Wuzn't  yer  tellin'  me  ?  .  . . "  and 
his  tongue  drifted  off  the  job  along  with  his  imsteady 
eye. 

"WuU,  wull,  come  on,  come  on!  Wot  wuz  it  yer  wuz 
a-syin'  to  'im?  Come  on  now!  Carry  on!"  urged  his 
friend,  but  to  no  purpose. 

Just  as  I  had  begun  to  think  my  newest  chum  was  too 
far  gone  to  give  further  information  on  the  state  of  the 
town's  jobs  and  conditions,  or  to  introduce  me  to  more  of 
his  companions,  drunk  or  sober,  he  seemed  suddenly  to  get 
hold  of  himself.  Perhaps  he  was  awakened  by  the  su^)- 
conscious  bell  of  alarm  and  danger  sounded  by  some  sixth 
sense  which,  whether  the  threat  is  against  our  body  or  our 
spirit,  seems  almost  never  to  go  quite  to  sleep  at  the  gen- 
eral high  headquarters  of  the  soul  of  any  of  us. 

"Wull,  se  'ere!"  he  brought  up  with  amazingly  sudden 
steadiness  and  seriousness.  ''Yer  mye  be  from  Hamerica 
— I  don't  know — but  Hi  do  know  as  ye  appear  ter  me  like 
some'at  more'n  a  poor  workin'  man  like  meself.  Thot  ye 
do,  in  God's  truth!  Now,  ye'll  not  misunderstawnd  me" 
(business  of  grasping  my  hand  and  transfixing  me  with  a 
serious  but  somewhat  wavering  eye  so  as  to  soften  the  con- 
templated thrust);  "ye'll  not  misunderstawnd  me,  mind, 
but  yer  heye  and  all — wull,  I've  seen  gentlemen — yuss, 
several  times — tho  it's  mostly  me  pals.  Bill  and  the  big  'un 
there.  But — wull,  now,  tell  me,  as  mon  ter  mon,  eyenH  yer 
pullin*  me  leg?" 

It  took  a  good  deal  of  talking,  but  finally  he  was  fairly 
satisfied  and  when  we  parted  at  the  sound  of  the  closing 
bell  and  the  call  of:  "Time,  gents,  time!  Move  along, 
now!  Move  along!"  he  called  back  quite  pleasantly  his: 
"Righto!    Hi'U  see  yer  'ere  Monday  night!" 

So,  with  such  a  warning  as  that,  I'm  glad  to  be  in  a  place 
that  will  permit  sinking  a  point  or  two  lower  in  the  scale 
of  soiled  shirt,  dirty  soft  collar  or  muffler,  and  unshaved 


164  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

face  now  that  the  search  for  jobs  or  at  least  for  confiding 
acquaintances  begins  to-morrow  morning. 

So  far  he's  the  only  one — except  the  hag  in  Glasgow.  So 
the  wonder  still  remains  that  people  are  so  quick  to  accept 
me  at  the  near-bottom  valuation  proclaimed  by  face  and 
cap  and  clothes.  A  wife  last  night,  for  instance,  in  an 
amusement  parlor  became  perfectly  friendly  the  moment  I 
gave  a  word  and  a  smile  to  her  beshawled  and  sickly  little 
baby. 

''Number  twelve  she  is — awnd  bright!  Wy,  w'en  'er 
fawther  comes  'ome  at  midnight,  mebbe — 'e's  a  'slinger' — 
that  is,  wuU,  if  yer  wuz  a  stevedore,  y'  understawnd,  you'd 
'ave  the  chawnce  at  the  job  afore  'e  would,  d'  ye  see  ?  Thot's 
because  'e's  a  slinger.  Awnd  w'en  'e  comes  'ome — day  or 
night,  ye  might  sye — 'ere's  the  byby  as  chipper  as  all !  .  .  . 
Yes,  there's  only  five  others  of  the  twelve  livin',  or,  as  yer 
might  sye,  four.  Ye  see,  I  don't  count  the  oldest.  We 
don't  keep  'im  awnd  'e  don't  keep — ^nor  'elp  us.  'E  lives 
and  works  at  the  ice-cream  shop.  Twenty-two,  'e  is — awnd 
blind.  So,  ye  see,  'e's  no  good  to  us  so  there's  no  need  ter 
count  'im,  now  is  there?  Cataracks — ^yes,  cataracks,  'twas 
thot  done  fer  'im — a  few  days  after  'e  wuz  bom." 

Neither  men  nor  women  seemed  to  be  suspicious  in  the 
pubs  visited  yesterday  in  Newcastle  down  near  the  docks 
in  a  district  full  of  that  fearful  poverty,  dnmkenness,  and 
degradation  into  which  it  is  so  amazingly  easy  to  walk  at 
almost  any  time  and  place  in  the  big  cities  over  here,  es- 
pecially the  shipping  cities. 

"Gimme  a  cigarette,  mate?"  came  from  a  young  woman 
of  alert  eye  and  intelligent  face  among  the  crowd  of  men 
and  women  pressing  up  to  the  whiskey  bottles  and  beer 
pumps.  One  of  her  young  friends  had  a  face  like  a  perfect 
Madonna  though  she  was  extremely  drunk.  ''Well,  you 
see,  I've  been  suspended  for  givin'  the  thirsty  boys  too 
much  beer  on  my  night  turns  at  the  'ospital.   And  just  now 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    165 

I've  done  twenty-one  days — seven  for  being  drunk  and 
fourteen  for  assaultin'  the  bloody  officer,  y'  understand? 
.  .  .  Yes,  I  can  kick  a  man  pretty  precise  when  I  try,  d'  ye 
see  ?  .  .  .  No,  I  don't  want  to  be  seen  smokin'  this  cigarette 
on  the  street.  You  see,  I  was  born  a  sergeant's  daughter, 
yes,  sir,  right  over  there  in  your  country — in  Alabama.  .  .  . 
I'll  smoke  it  later.  'Why,  'ello,  'usband  Jack,  back  again !' 
...  I  call  'im  'usband — the  court  makes  'im  pay  me  a 
poimd  a  week  for  my  baby.  Yes,  if  I  smoked  it  right  now 
everybody  'roimd  'ere  would  talk." 

And  from  that  she  led  into  a  serious  and  intelligent 
though  half-drunken  discussion  of  world  politics!  Verily, 
of  all  the  traffic  cops  to  be  encountered  at  the  multitudi- 
nous streets  and  intersections  of  the  labyrinthine  comings 
and  goings  of  us  humans,  the  strangest  by  far,  as  well  as  the 
strongest,  with  all  its  arbitrary  and  compelling  alternations 
of  ''Stop!"  and  *'Go!"  is  that  one  deep  down  within  the 
heart  of  every  one  of  us  known  as  Self -Respect ! 

People  standing  at  their  doors,  like  rats  over  their  drains, 
to  see  a  neighbor's  funeral,  made  a  heart-sickening  sight  of 
degraded  and  broken-down  humanity.  One  of  the  be- 
draggled wrecks,  and  not  the  worst  of  them  either,  came  up 
to  ask  help  for  a  "pen'n-orth  o'  bread  "for  her  gray  hairs. 
There  and  in  other  parts  of  the  city  the  heart  felt  the  pathos 
of  such  as  the  ragged  child  with  one  of  his  legs  hardly 
thicker  than  his  little  cane,  and  of  the  numerous  other  piti- 
ful possessors  of  bent  or  crippled  little  legs  and  backs. 

It  does  seem  certain  that  the  general  or  common  laborer 
over  here,  though  English-speaking,  is  of  a  lower  grade  and 
level  than  even  our  lowest  workers  among  the  foreign-bom. 
I  wonder  if  the  reason  is  that  our  lowest  workers  have,  per- 
haps, a  livelier  hope — a  larger  faith  that  a  better  job  may 
come,  and  with  it  a  better  life.  The  question  is  whether 
regularity  of  employment,  if  and  when  this  is  increased  by 
the  present  national  efforts,  will  be  able  greatly  to  help 


166  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

these  near-wrecks  of  the  dock  districts,  their  wives  and 
families,  as  long  as  bad  housing  and  "booze"  continue  to 
flourish  as  they  do — with  also  the  ''bookie"  to  be  named  as 
the  third  of  the  destructive  trio. 

In  Edinburgh  Friday  night  a  very  sweet-faced  woman 
swore  softly  and  smiled  sweetly  in  the  strangest  of  com- 
binations as  she  staggered  into  the  car,  and  the  capable 
anti-rent-strike  woman  speaker  was  interrupted  by  the 
usual  drunken  listeners. 

''Yus,  awnd  a  bonnie-lookin',  bloo-ody  objeck  'e  wuz, 
too!"  exclaimed  one  when  Pussyfoot  Johnson  was  men- 
tioned. 

Later  the  policeman  explained  that  all  was  very  quiet 
because  everybody  had  been  having  a  week's  holiday  and 
so  had  no  money  to  ''get  up  the  pole."  That  is  the  same 
reason  given  for  a  comparatively  quiet  Saturday  night  here 
in  Middlesbrough  yesterday,  though  the  drunken  laborers 
and  clerks  could  be  counted  by  the  dozen ! 

Just  as  I  write  these  words  at  the  lodging-house  dining- 
table,  in  walk  some  footballers  from  Glasgow — mostly  in- 
toxicated in  preparation  for  a  match  near  by.  They  in- 
sist that  they  will  vote  either  for  no  Ucense  or  more  license 
— that  is,  for  Sunday  opening.  But  on  pressure  they  admit 
that  the  whiskey-beer,  not  the  Sunday  closing,  accounts 
for  the  greater  drunkenness  there  in  Scotland  than  here. 
One  of  them  explained: 

"In  London  a  Scotchman  wa'  asked  by  the  barmaid: 
'Jock,  w'y  do  ye  no'  drink  beer  alone  or  whuskee  alone?' 
and  he  says  to  'er,  he  says:  'Uf  Ah  drinks  whuskee  aloon, 
then  Ah'm  dronk  afoor  Ah'm  foo'  (full).  Uf  Ah  drinks 
beer  aloon,  then  Ah'm  foo'  afoor  Ah'm  droonk.  Wi'  whus- 
kee awnd  beer,  Ah'm  joost  fet  (fit) — Ah'm  both  droonk 
awnd  foo' !'  " 

For  economical  adaptation  of  means  to  end,  efficiency 
engineers  could  hardly  beat  that  I 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    167 

Yesterday  afternoon  brought  a  "close-up"  with  the 
"bookies."  After  standing  all  morning  in  the  vestibule  of 
a  crowded  train  from  Edinburgh,  and  making  the  acquain- 
tance of  a  whippet  dog  and  its  interesting  owner,  it  seemed 
altogether  proper  to  witness  the  races  in  which  the  attrac- 
tive animal  was  entered. 

Everything  about  it  is  calculated  to  make  whippet- 
racing  an  exciting  occasion.  Inside  the  fence  hundreds  of 
dogs,  mostly  in  handsome  blankets,  are  tugging  wildly  at 
their  chains,  barking  and  howling  at  the  top  of  their  lungs, 
with  occasionally  an  almost  human  piercing  scream  of 
hysteria.  Nearly  two  score  "bookies"  are  displaying  their 
wager-boards  and  shouting:  "Two  to  one  on  the  Blue! 
Two  to  one  on  the  Blue !"  while  men  and  boys  rush  up  with 
their  wagers  of  a  "bob"  or  a  "quid"  (pound).  When 
the  starter's  whistle  sounds  the  holders  or  "slippers,"  each 
with  his  dog,  take  their  places  at  the  upper  end  of  the 
string  nmways,  each  of  these  being  about  three  feet  in 
width.  Then  the  "runners-out"  endeavor  to  fix  the  atten- 
tion of  the  held  but  howling,  barking,  shrieking,  and 
squirming  canine  contestant  upon  the  towel  in  their  hands. 
Waving  it  wildly  and  shouting  and  whistling  madly,  these 
runners-out  back  off  down  the  one  hundred  and  ninety 
yards  to  the  finish-line.  With  the  count,  the  slippers  grasp 
their  dogs  by  the  scruff  of  the  neck  and  their  tails,  arms 
far  back,  Mr.  Dog's  hind  legs  high  in  the  air.  Ready! 
Bang !  goes  the  pistol !  Forward  go  the  slippers'  arms  and, 
like  brown  streaks,  down  the  lanes  run  the  dogs — really  at 
marvellous  speed — each  to  grab  the  towel  from  its  runner- 
out,  or  failing  this  to  start  a  howl  and  a  fight  for  one  which 
a  near-by  contestant  holds  and  shakes  in  its  mouth.  Up 
goes  the  flag  for  the — ^yes,  by  George,  for  the  Red  not  the 
Blue!  "Thot's  a  bit  of  orl  right,  eh,  wot,  mate!"  Down 
surges  the  crowd  in  glee  while,  with  impassive  faces,  the 
bookies  hand  out  the  winnings  from  their  money  satchels. 


168  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Few  of  the  crowd  of  working  men  or  clerks  seemed  to 
watch  the  races  for  themselves  very  closely;  the  judge's  flag 
was  evidently  enough  to  show  them  either  to  get  their 
winnings  or  how  to  mark  their  performance  records  so  as 
to  make  them  a  help  to  more  successful  wagers  later. 
Yesterday  there  were  nine  dogs  entered  for  each  of  sixty- 
five  heats !  Imagine  the  yelping  of  that  aggregation,  each 
one  of  them  on  the  verge  of  nervous  prostration  in  its  desire 
to  start  for  the  towel !  A  prize  of  sixty-five  pounds  will 
reward  the  winner  and  the  gains  or  losses  will  reward  or 
punish  the  hundreds  of  gamblers  on  every  heat. 

"  Some  dogs  stop  'alf  way.  Some  don't.  Some  get  mad. 
Some  don't.  We  study  the  character  of  the  dogs  and  those 
that  'andle  them — the  ways  and  'abits  as  well  as  the  per- 
formances of  all  of  them,"  a  bookie  explained.  "We  can't 
lose.  The  figures  will  get  'em — bound  to,  if  they  keep  at  it 
long  enough.  Yes,  that's  true  with  the  dogs  and  the  'orses 
both.  .  .  .  But  still,  I  just  couldn't  live  without  gambling 
— impossible.  And  I've  got  a  boy  who  'as  more  of  a  'ead 
for  figures  than  I  'ave.  'E'U  be  a  wonder  at  this  busi- 
ness." 

Well,  for  that  ''fed  up"  feehng  of  this  morning,  the  only 
palliative  seems  to  be  a  liberal  application  of  that  Hfe-saver: 
''It's  a  great  life — forlorn  humans,  fleas,  and  all — if  you 
don't  weaken!"  So  I  guess  I  can  "stick  it"  a  few  more 
weeks. 

Anyway,  the  whole  country  appears  this  morning  to  be 
much  fed  up  itself.  All  the  papers,  including  the  par- 
ticular weekly  murder-and-scandal  sheet  which  outsells  all 
others  combined,  are  viewing  most  seriously  the  possibiUty 
of  a  huge,  national  disaster  in  the  miner's  strike  ballot  now 
proceeding  toward  a  probably  unfavorable  outcome.  In 
addition,  the  Electrical  Trades  Union  goes  further  in  its 
threat  to  strike  and  so  tie  up  all  industries  because  the 
National  Federation  of  Employers  continues  to  stand  be- 


THE  CROWD  WAITS  AS  THE  BOOKIES  MARK  UP  THEIR  PREFERENCES 
AT  THE  WEEK-END  WHIPPET  RACES. 


>el^ 


.....ijkii 


CROWDS  LISTENING  TO  THE  SMOOTH-TONGUED  SALESMEN  OF 
"RIOT,  RACING,  OR  RELIGION— REPRESENTATIVES  OF  A  BETTER 
CHANCE  IN  EITHER  THIS  WORLD  OK  THE  WORLD  TO  COME.  " 


"WHAT'S  THE  MATTER  WITH  GLASGOW?"    169 

hind  a  Sheffield  firm  in  refusing  (since  July  2)  to  require 
union  membership  of  their  foremen !  Dockers  at  London 
and  ahnost  all  other  points  are  reported  in  constantly  worse 
condition  following  wide-spread  lack  of  work — partly  be- 
cause the  high  wages  have  attracted  many  into  that  field. 
All  city  employees  in  Cardiff  have  downed  tools  in  sym- 
pathy with  the  city's  track-layers;  these  make  the  same  de- 
mand as  put  their  friends  off  the  job  there  that  night  at 
Newport.  Everywhere  the  dockmen's  unions  are  lam- 
basting the  miners'  unions  for  their  ''ca-canny"  methods 
of  sabotage.  The  general  secretary  of  the  "Middle  Classes 
Union "  also  comes  out  against  the  evil  ways  of  the  miners. 
Smaller  strikes  all  over  the  country  are  too  numerous  to 
mention.  In  Newcastle  the  employees  of  the  Co-opera- 
tive Wholesale  Society  are  striking  against  their  employers. 
These  employers,  of  course,  are  themselves  union  leaders 
and  workers. 

All  this  confusion  is  worse  confounded  by  the  fact  that 
many  of  the  Lords  and  other  leaders  who  fulminate 
against  the  unreasonableness  of  labor  also  proclaim  heat- 
edly that  the  present  government  (party)  is  possessed  of 
"Squandermania,"  is  inefficient  in  controlling  the  cost  of 
living  as  well  as  in  handling  the  Mesopotamia  situation,  and 
is  altogether  unworthy  of  respect.  This,  of  course,  is  taken 
by  ihany  of  the  labor  leaders  to  justify  their  philosophy  of 
"Direct  Action,"  that  is,  of  using  industrial  strikes  to  op- 
pose and  undermine  the  government  party  when  their 
votes  fail  to  do  it.  Meanwhile  the  government  has  inter- 
cepted and  published  wireless  messages  showing  that  the 
Bolsheviks  in  Moscow  consider  labor's  paper,  the  Herald, 
one  of  their  "institutions  abroad." 

The  next  four  weeks  look  like  exciting  ones.  Meanwhile 
the  next  few  days  should  reveal  something  about  the  happi- 
ness or  unhappiness  of  this  Pittsburgh  of  Great  Britain. 


CHAPTER  V 

WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE,  CINDER  PIT 
AND  CAST  BED 

Middlesbrough,  Yorkshire, 
August  25th. 

"Full  up !    Not  a  chance !    Full  up !" 

After  getting  that  from  a  number  of  "gaffers"  m  charge 
of  the  various  blast-furnaces  and  smelting  stages  which 
make  this  district  famous,  I'm  for  seconding  the  motion  of 
the  fellow-boarder  here  last  night. 

"It's  all  very  well  to  be  told  by  this  chap  and  that: 
'There's  a  good  berth  'ere  and  a  fine  crib  there!'  When 
you  get  there  it's  always  just  let  out  and  they're  'Full 
up!'    Always  'Full  up!'" 

This  is  certainly  the  land  of  the  strangle-hold  on  the  job. 
If  the  Englishman's  home  is  his  castle,  then  the  English- 
man's job  is  the  portculHs  and  drawbridga  thereof,  for 
carefully  reeling  up  and  stowing  carefully  away  inside  the 
castle  every  night. 

"Since  the  war,  y'  understand,  the  imions  *ere  'as  got 
much  more  powerful,"  a  mechanic  explained  one  factor  of 
this  matter  of  scarce  jobs,  especially  the  skilled  ones.  With 
his  helper  he  was  taking  a  long  loaf  at  the  foot  of  the  hoist 
at  one  of  the  big  hand-charged  blast-furnaces.  "At  some 
works  the  imion  agents  will  be  waitin'  for  ye  outside  the 
gates  and  will  warn  ye  away  if  ye're  not  one  o'  them.  If 
ye  gets  past  them  into  the  line,  or  'market,'  that  stands 
over  there  every  day  just  before  the  shift  goes  on,  the 
gaffer's  likely  to  save  'imself  later  trouble  by  takin'  the 
union  men  first.  .  .  . 

170 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    171 

*'My  boy,  'e's  apprenticed  now  to  a  joiner,"  he  con- 
tinued with  what  is  certainly  a  real  demonstration  of  the 
shape  this  problem  takes  there  in  the  very  castle  of  the 
worker.  "  'E's  only  fourteen  and  'e  cawn't  be  finished  till 
'e's  twenty-one.  But,  ye  see,  I  daren't  wait  till  'e's  sixteen, 
'cause  there  mightn't  be  any  place  for  'im  then  and  there 
'appens  to  be  one  now.  Ye  see,  that's  the  point.  Yes, 
thot'U  be  meanin'  seven  years  as  apprentice  instead  of  five 
from  his  start  at  a  pound  a  week  with  a  few  shillin'  added 
every  birthday.  But — well,  'e's  sure  of  a  place  now  fer 
life — and  there's  always  work  for  joiners — always.  Say, 
ye'd  think  'e  was  savin'  the  'ole  family  from  ruin,  thot  im- 
portant 'e  is." 

This  quick  jump  "from  the  cradle  to  the  union" — out 
of  short  pants  into  overalls — sounds  like  the  way  some  of 
om*  American  millionaires  are  said  to  telegraph  certain 
famous  boys'  schools  engaging  a  place  the  moment  the 
nurse  whispers:  "Masculine  gender,  sir!" 

"But  I'm  thinkin'  serious  o'  gettin'  a  labor  job  myself," 
the  mechanic  went  on.  "The  rises  (raises)  ain't  been  fair, 
like.  Now,  'ere's  my  'elper.  All  the  war  awards  'as  raised 
'im  195  per  cent  above  pre-war,  w'ile  they've  raised  me  only 
125  per  cent,  d'  ye  see?  Thot  makes  'im  draw  almost  the 
same  as  me.  But  if  any  job's  wrong,  it's  me  that  gets  all 
the  blame,  not  'im.  Now,  thot's  wrong,  all  wrong.  And 
then  'ere's  these  dockers  and  all  sorts  of  laborers  besides. 
No  six  or  seven  years  of  apprenticin',  d'  ye  understand? 
nor  anything,  and  they  gettin'  their  sixteen  bob  a  day! 
Thot's  wrong,  all  wrong." 

This  same  matter  of  comparative  standings  and  relative 
wages  has  been  at  the  bottom  of  much  unhappiness  among 
the  workers  at  home.  And  for  much  the  same  reason — the 
comparatively  rapid,  or  over-rapid,  increase  in  the  pay  of 
the  unskilled  worker  due  to  the  war's  demand  for  munitions. 
On  a  machine  which  had  been  made  fool-proof  by  the  skill 


172  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

of  the  inventor  the  unskilled  worker  could  turn  out  a  huge 
number  of  pieces  and  so  could  show  earnings  which  upset 
all  the  previously  established  levels  of  earnings  and  other 
importances  by  which  the  skilled  machinist  or  electrician 
enjoyed  the  sense  of  his  superiority — and  his  wife's  and 
family's  superiority — in  the  working  commimity.  Appar- 
ently this  important  difference  between  the  earnings  and 
standings  of  the  imskilled  and  the  skilled  worker  is  much 
less  here  now  than  in  America,  whether  so  largely  due  to 
the  war  or  not.  It  sounds  strange,  for  instance,  to  hear 
that  with  the  dockers  getting  two  shillings,  bricklayers 
draw  less  than  three  shillings  per  hour.  If  the  irregularity 
of  the  docker's  work  is  given  as  the  reason  for  the  two  shil- 
lings, it  could  also  be  urged  on  behalf  of  the  bricklayer. 

On  the  smelting-stage  the  first  and  second  hands  make 
their  fifteen  and  twenty  pounds  a  week  against  their  labor- 
ers' five  to  seven.  This  serves  as  a  sort  of  bait  for  keeping 
the  less  fortunate  workers  hard  on  the  job,  guarding  strenu- 
ously their  position  in  the  line — with  its  established  chance 
at  the  higher  jobs  when  they  open  up.  The  managers  say 
that  the  high  wages  of  the  first  and  second  hands  prove 
how  hard  it  is  to  get  the  worker  to  consent  to  a  reduced 
wage  under  any  circumstances.  For  after  originally  es- 
tabhshing  the  high  tonnage  rates,  they  later  took  away  the 
necessity  of  the  old  and  hard  work  of  hand  charging  the 
fiunaces  by  installing  the  electric  charging  cranes.  Then 
the  managers  took  from  the  first  hand  the  need  of  paying 
his  helpers  out  of  his  own  pay.  Next  the  industry  increased 
his  tonnage  by  enlarging  the  furnaces.  Finally,  it  became 
desirable  to  lessen  his  responsibiUty  and  need  of  skill  by 
putting  a  "sample  passer"  over  him.  But  all  this  failed  to 
permit  any  chance  of  seriously  decreasing  his  tonnage  rate. 
Hence  the  larger  and  larger  weekly  earnings. 

All  this  money  at  the  top  helps  to  put  onto  the  smelting 
stage — with  a  fair  go  at  something  like  a  career  with  its 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    173 

opportunity  up — such  a  worker  as  I  met  yesterday: 
' '  Yuss,  I  wore  borned  in  thus  bloo-ody  furnace,  'ere !  Thirty 
bloo-ody  years  .  .  .  but  I'm  mikin'  good  money  now." 

From  fields  where  the  larger  earnings  at  the  top  are 
lacking  in  comparison  with  other  lines,  men  keep  moving 
out.  As  a  well-educated  boy  in  a  very  antique  smelting 
shop  put  it  to-day: 

"For  five  years  I  was  in  the  'lab'  here — testin*  samples, 
you  know.  But  what's  the  use?  You  can  never  do  any- 
thing but  make  analyses  all  your  Hfe — nothin'  else.  So 
'ere  I  am  third  'and  on  the  smelters — and  'opin'  to  be  first, 
one  of  these  days  with  good  luck.  That  chap  over  there 
— 'charge-wheeler'  'e  is — shovellin'  that  lime  and  heavy 
iron-stone  into  the  'chargin'  pans'  all  day — ^well,  'e's  just 
left  the  '  lab '  after  ten  years.  Ten  years  as  good  as  lost,  in 
spite  of  all  'is  brains." 

Yes,  it  looks  as  though  the  job's  future  possibilities  are 
about  as  important  as  its  hourly  rates.  Of  course,  there  is 
the  danger  that  this  may  mean  the  discouragement  of  in- 
itiative by  putting  too  high  a  value  upon  the  mere  passing 
of  time  by  the  holders  of  the  various  places  in  the  line,  with 
the  deadening  results  so  often  noted  in  civil  service.  Doubt- 
less, the  managers  here,  however,  require  a  certain  amount 
of  ability  in  addition  to  the  serving  of  the  time  as  a  condi- 
tion to  taking  the  next  step  up.  Still,  it  looks  certain,  too, 
that  management  here  does  give  men  more  assurance  of 
their  job  with  less  strictness  than  in  America,  judging  from 
the  way  I  can  walk  all  through  these  plants  and  loaf  in 
them  by  the  hour  without  getting  into  any  trouble  and  also 
from  the  way  all  the  workers,  for  instance,  shrug  their 
shoulders  about  coming  into  the  works  and  onto  the  job 
with  a  good  deal  of  whiskey  and  beer  in  their  bodies  and 
more  or  less  in  their  clothes  without  apparently  much 
danger  of  the  "call-down"  they  would  be  sure  to  get  in 
"the  States."    "It's  not  so  bad  as  jt  used  to  be  when  we'd 


174  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

bring  in  beer  along  with  us  to  work — ^by  the  gallon,"  is 
about  the  best  the  workers  can  say.  The  testimony  among 
them,  however,  is  mainly  to  the  effect  that  a  worker  who  is 
discharged  for  being  drunk  on  the  job  is  likely  to  "get  the 
sack"  without  the  union's  possessing  the  power  to  put  him 
back  for  a  long  time,  at  least. 

More  than  a  few  of  the  older  workers,  besides  the  mechanic 
quoted,  appear  much  troubled  by  the  union's  insistence 
that  a  boy  turned  twenty-one  shall  be  paid  the  same  daily 
rate  as  the  oldest  in  the  trade.  So  the  result  of  all  this 
comes  pretty  close,  on  the  whole,  to  establishing  in  in- 
dustry here  as  well  as  in  government  something  like  civil 
service,  especially  in  the  fields  where  piece  rates  or  payment 
by  results  cannot  be  practised.  This  is  caused,  at  least 
partly,  by  the  unions,  though  mainly,  I  should  say,  by  the 
comparative  scarcity  of  jobs.  At  any  rate,  if  you  couple  it 
with  the  big  difference  in  the  education  of  the  workers  and 
of  the  "masters,"  which  it  in  turn  helps  to  cause,  you  are 
pretty  sure  to  have  the  cause  of  the  class  lines  which  so 
definitely  mark  off  the  workers  from  much  hope  of  entering 
the  group  of  management  in  particular  or  the  "master" 
class  in  general.  In  other  words,  the  class  line  is  largely  an 
equipment  line  which  follows  as  the  night  the  day,  upon 
what  looks  to  me  like  a  nation-wide  scarcity  of  jobs.  So  it 
comes  that  the  system  of  civil  service  or  near  civil  service, 
when  once  estabhshed  in  industry  for  making  oversure  of 
the  job,  tends  in  turn  to  discourage  education,  initiative, 
and  ambition  by  making  them  more  or  less  valueless  on  the 
job — or,  if  valuable,  then  valuable  only  if  you  take  a  lot  of 
risk  of  losing  your  place  m  the  line. 

In  that  connection  it  is  very  surprising  to  hear  the  work- 
ers discuss  seriously  among  themselves  the  question  of 
whether  they  get  the  best  treatment  from  the  gaffers  who 
have  worked  up  from  the  bottom  or  from  the  others — from 
the  rankers  or  the  toppers.    I  don't  remember  ever  to  have 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    175 

heard  it  discussed  by  the  workers  in  my  seven  months  of 
laboring  at  home. 

"  Yer  see  'e  knows  all  the  tricks  and  wants  ter  alius  be 
showin'  as  'ow  yer  cawn't  pull  'is  leg,"  one  of  the  workers 
at  one  big  smelting  shop  settled  the  discussion  against  too 
much  promotion  from  the  ranks.  A  soldier  on  a  train  last 
week — ^he  was  himself  a  petty  official — ^was  the  strongest  in 
his  opposition: 

"Hi  never  seen  a  ranker  make  a  good  hofficer  yet — awnd 
Hi've  'ad  'em  over  me  a  lot — hadjutants  and  all.  In  the 
hexercises  and  heverywhere  it's  alius  'Hi've  been  there 
meself,  boys,  and  it  cawn't  be  done.  Hi'm  too  wise,  boys.* 
You  know  'ow  it  is.    No,  sir,  never  one." 

They  might  be  right,  judging  from  one  manager  of  open 
hearths,  who,  after  the  usual  "Full  up!"  made  his  view- 
point sound  pretty  sane,  too: 

"If  the  company  wants  me  to  run  this  place  I  can't  let 
the  union  do  it  for  me — nor  the  men,  now,  can  I  ?  And  if 
they  pull  my  leg  once  or  twice,  I'm  done  in  for  good  and  I 
ought  to  get  the  sack  myself.  So  I'm  on  the  lookout  for 
all  the  dodges  I  used  to  help  the  boys  work  when  I  was  one 
of  them.  That's  why  you  could  take  your  time  about  join- 
ing the  union  so  far  as  I'm  concerned  if  I  had  a  job  for  you. 
But  there's  no  chance." 

Another  "super"  with  something  of  the  same  experience 
in  his  twenty-five  years  around  a  blast-furnace  from  bot- 
tom to  top,  was  equally  sure — after  he  also  had  shaken  his 
head  for  the  everlasting  "Full  up !" — that  the  men  working 
on  time  and  not  tonnage  are  a  lot  of  first-class  loafers  who 
come  with  woozy  heads  onto  the  job  every  day  after  spend- 
ing most  of  their  money  at  the  pubs: 

"It's  not  such  workers  but  the  new  American  furnaces — 
like  that  one  we're  building  over  there — that  we've  got  to 
look  to  for  cheaper  iron.  They  require  about  one  man  to 
the  ten  or  twelve  that  these  old  tanks  have  to  have.    Of 


176  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

course,  you  know  that  'gun'  there — for  putting  in  the  plug 
after  the  furnace  has  been  tapped  for  the  'cast' — is  Amer- 
ican, too.    It  saves  labor  and  is  much  safer,  too." 

Down  in  the  checker-chambers,  up  on  the  "stage,"  over 
by  the  rolls — every  place  where  I've  been  talking  these 
last  two  days — most  of  the  workers  seem  surely  to  have 
picked  up  the  idea — mainly  from  the  experience  of  their 
relatives  and  friends — that  America  somehow  gives  a  better 
chance  to  "get  on"  and  "be  somebody."  That  being  so, 
it  is  almost  comical  to  watch  their  faces  when  I  tell  them 
that  most  of  the  steel  workers  in  America  are  still  working 
the  long  twelve-hour  day  and  the  full  week,  many  of  them 
working  a  double  or  twenty-four-hour  shift  every  other 
Sunday,  instead  of  the  regular  week-end  stoppage  which 
is  regular  here  everywhere  except  in  the  blast-furnaces. 
All  the  variations  of  incredulity,  surprise,  disgust,  and 
finally  British  pride,  run  over  their  features  before  they  ob- 
tain enough  answers  to  their  questions  to  support  the  com- 
prehension and  acceptance  of  the  amazing  news.  "No! — 
Now? — Twelve  hours  without  time  out  for  lunch  or  break- 
fast!— In  America? — And  seven  days  a  week!  Well,  hail 
Britannia!  I  supposed  we  was  bloo-ody  well  the  lawst! 
Blime,  yer  don't  sye !  WuU,  now.  Hi  sye ! — "  and  so  on  ad 
infinitum. 

"Proper  slavery  it  was  afore  we  changed  'ere,"  a  fire- 
heater  put  it.  "Bloo-ody  murder — nothin'  less!  Awnd 
after  the  long  double  turns  for  chingin'  the  shifts — twenty- 
four  bloo-ody  hours — a  feller  would  'ave  ter  stop  in  fer  a 
pint  or  two.  Then  the  fust  thing  'e  knowed,  'e  wuz  done 
fer.    'Course  'e  wuz  all  done  in  ter  start  with,  like." 

It  is  amazing  to  learn  that  the  eight-hour  turn  was  ob- 
tained for  the  majority  of  the  country's  blast-fumace  men 
as  far  back  as  1897 ! 

"Twenty-five  per  cent  more  we  been  gettin'  out  of  the 
bloomin'  furnaces,  too,  since  the  change,"  was  the  claim 


WITH  THE  *ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    177 

made  by  one  of  the  men  who  remembered  the  old  days. 
There  is  doubtless  considerable  room  to  doubt  the  accu- 
racy of  his  figures  after  so  long  a  time. 

In  general  the  attitude  toward  America  appears  a  very 
good  indicator  of  a  man's  general  information  and  prej- 
udices here.  If  he  is  certain  that  the  whole  of  our  country 
is  in  the  hands  of  a  dozen  super-corrupt  and,  therefore, 
super-wealthy  men  he's  pretty  sure  to  be  close  to  the  rad- 
icals and  the  Bolsheviks,  or,  at  least,  the  extreme  Socialists. 
Of  these,  the  two  days  of  listening  here  would  seem  to  in- 
dicate surprisingly  few — certainly,  at  least,  in  comparison 
with  South  Wales  and  the  Clyde  bank.  Yesterday  after- 
noon permitted  several  hours  out  in  the  open  fields  up  above 
the  furnaces  and  at  the  entrance  to  the  mines  that  gave  the 
district  its  start  by  giving  it  its  Cleveland  "iron-stone,"  or 
iron-ore.  "Cleveland  iron"  is  one  of  the  industry's  basic 
terms.  From  the  mouths  of  these  mines  half-way  up  the 
range  of  hills  you  can  see  with  one  sweep  the  scores  of 
plants  in  the  level — and  lovely — ^plain  below,  and  the  rea- 
sons for  them  in  the  shape  of  the  ore  beneath  your  feet,  the 
coal-mines  of  both  Yorkshire  and  Durham  near  by,  the  lime- 
stone only  a  few  miles  away,  and,  finally,  the  well-dredged 
channel  of  the  Tees  River  which  brings  big  boats  from  all 
over  the  world  into  Middlesbrough  harbor  for  the  steel  and 
the  numberless  other  products  of  the  Leeds  districts  farther 
inside. 

At  the  "winding-house"  (electric)  of  one  of  the  "drifts," 
or  horizontal  mine-mouths,  on  the  hillside,  good  luck  brought 
me  into  conversation  with  a  pair  of  the  best-informed  work- 
men met  anywhere  yet  on  the  job. 

"All  too  far  the  big  leaders  down  in  London  are  goin' — 
Bob  Smillie  and  all.  .  .  .  Oh,  aye,  it's  probably  as  unsafe 
for  labor  to  have  all  the  power  as  for  capital.  Co-operation 
between  'em's  best.  Co-operation  and  not  nationalization. 
No,  not  nationaHzation.     Why,  if  one  of  the  post-office 


178  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

clerks  or  one  at  the  income-tax  office  was  to  say  'Thank 
you/  we'd  fan*  fall  over  dead!  They're  all  on  their  jobs 
'for  the  duration,'  like,  you  know,  so  what  do  they  care? 
.  .  .  No,  the  Independent  Labor  Party  is  a  lot  of  one-sided 
extremists." 

"Oh,  aye!"  they  both  exclaimed  when  told  of  my  ob- 
servation that  few  of  the  workers  seemed  to  read  much  of 
the  daily  newspapers  outside  of  the  sporting  news,  after 
they  had  amazed  me  with  their  own  daily  reading  of  the 
doings  of  Parliament.  "  Few  o'  the  miners  understand  about 
this  strike  that's  planned — though  they  do  see  this  company 
puttin'  up  plants  with  money  that  should  go  to  Excess 
Profits  Tax. 

*'Ajid  you're  right  about  your  'booze  and  bookies,'  too! 
They're  the  greatest  enemies  of  the  working  class.  Fair 
disgusting  it  was  when  the  war  brought  a  beer  shortage. 
Queues  a  quarter  mile  long  outside  every  public  'ouse  with 
people  inside  fightin'  their  way  up  to  the  bar,  swillin'  down 
as  much  as  they  could  'old — fair  eatin'  it  up,  you  under- 
stand— goin'  out  to  vomit  it  up  and  then  gettin'  back  into 
the  line  again !  One  man  that  was  standin'  for  Parhament 
jumped  in  durin'  one  shortage  and  with  the  'elp  of  his  in- 
fluence got  three  barrels  sent  into  a  thirsty  district  as  a 
special  favor.  You  can  believe  me  or  not,  but  it  got  'im 
'is  seat  in  the  'ouse !  Yes,  sir !  Disgustin' — ^fair  disgustin' 
—it  all  is!" 

"Fair  astonishing"  it  was  to  learn  a  few  moments  later 
that  they  were  both  officials  in  the  local  iron-stone  miners' 
union ! 

So  all  questions  to  date  have  supported  the  report  en- 
countered in  London  that  this  is  a  conservative  and  com- 
paratively quiet  sector  on  Britain's  industrial  and  poKtical 
front.  The  reason  is  beyond  me — so  far,  at  least.  But  there . 
is  a  reason,  without  doubt.  Perhaps  it  will  be  a  whole  fam- 
ily of  reasons  as  there  on  the  Clyde  bank — ^hope  it  can  be 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    179 

found,  too,  without  requiring  too  many  of  my  rapidly  di- 
minishing store  of  weeks. 

After  the  final  days  here  and  in  Sheffield  it  won't  be  par- 
ticularly heart-breaking  to  part  with  all  my  faithful  little 
bed  fellows — though  it  does  give  daily  pleasure  to  note  my 
constantly  increasing  skill  as  a  hunter  and  slayer.  Every 
morning  now  permits  its  boast  of  at  least  one  trophy  won 
by  quickness  of  eye  or  speed  of  finger.  Yesterday  it  was 
four !  It  was  almost  as  good  a  setting-up  exercise  for  my 
"mentals"  as  my  ordinary  gymnastics  are  for  my  "phys- 
icals." Somehow  it  made  the  day  look  certain  to  be  suc- 
cessful !  However,  they  contrive  to  beat  me  when  it  comes 
to  results.  Last  night  I  counted  up  to  a  hundred  uncom- 
fortable bites  before  growing  too  disgusted  and  homesick 
for  further  mathematical  research. 

Perhaps,  come  to  think  of  it,  it  was  this  depressing  arith- 
metic of  discomfort  and  disrespectability  that  made  it 
sound  so  trifling  when  the  highly  self-conscious  minister 
last  Sunday  night  thundered  and  pounded  so  hard  to  prove 
that  the  only  way  England  can  solve  her  present  serious 
troubles  is  for  everybody  to  be  "washed  in  the  blood  of  the 
Lamb."  He  made  a  great  point  of  the  fact  that  "sin  has 
a  way  of  coming  home  to  roost  on  the  head  of  the  offender 
— that's  always  the  nature  of  sin !"  He  appeared  unwilHng 
to  grant  that  the  same  is  equally  true  for  virtue,  the  dif- 
ference being,  indeed,  that  we  call  our  doings  good  or  bad, 
sinful  or  virtuous,  according  as  their  results  are  observed, 
in  the  long  run,  to  "come  home  to  roost"  in  happy  and  de- 
sired, or  unhappy  and  undesired  ways.  What  he  seemed  to 
think  least  worth  noticing  is  that  one  of  the  most  important 
of  all  the  "roostings"  that  may  follow  upon  this  or  that  line 
of  doings  is  the  resultant  standing  or  lack  of  standing  in  the 
eyes  of  our  neighbors  and  fellow  citizens.  So  it  is  our  own 
attitudes  of  praise  or  blame  or  indifference  that  are  deter- 
mining to  a  very  considerable  extent  the  conduct  of  our 


180  FULL  UP  AND   FED  UP 

fellows.  For  that  reason,  at  least  one  very  present  and 
practical  function  of  the  church  is  evident.  So  while  he 
spoke  I  wondered  whether  he  would  ever  discover  any  con- 
nection between  the  great  number  of  drunken  men  and 
women  streaming  at  the  moment  out  of  the  open  pubs,  and 
a  church  preoccupied  with  the  refinements  of  a  mystical 
process  whereby  "white  robes"  are  to  be  achieved  by  the 
almost  unrecognizable  world  he  was  describing,  a  world  in 
which  such  things  as  the  Great  War  and  the  great  war 
weariness,  the  Indispensable  Job  and  the  equally  Indispens- 
able Self-Respect,  evidently  had  no  part.  If  such  a  church 
assigns  but  little  social  stigma  to  the  drunkenness  and 
gambling  which  are  favored  by  the  limitations  of  the  job, 
and  if  these  limitations  mean  that  sobriety  and  initiative 
can  bring  comparatively  little  above  the  hourly  wage-rate 
of  the  twenty-one-year-older — ^well,  what  difference  to  the 
eye  of  the  worker  is  visible  between  the  roosting  manners 
of  the  brood  of  current  morals  and  immorals? 

The  church  and  the  "working  class"  here  are  certainly  a 
long  way  apart — farther,  on  the  whole,  probably,  than  at 
home.  But  we  certainly  have  nothing  to  brag  about  in 
America.  There  the  ordinary  pastor  seems  to  miss  the 
point  of  both  the  driving  compulsions  and  restrictions  of 
the  job  upon  the  lower  worker  and  also  the  rewarding  op- 
portunities possessed  by  the  higher  worker,  the  employer 
and  the  executive  for  finding  in  his  job  the  satisfactions  of  a 
practical  ideahsm  which  makes  the  pastor's  emphasis  upon 
his  obscure  and  mystical  blood-washing  technicahties  sound 
impractical,  unrelated,  and  trivial. 

Till  the  church  learns  better  how  much  more — ^how  in- 
finitely more — our  jobs  are  influencing  our  thinking  than 
our  thinking  is  influencing  our  jobs,  both  the  earners  of 
daily  bread  and  the  earners  of  daily  jam  and  cake  are 
likely  to  be  less  interested  than  they  might  in  the  kind  of 
salvation  so  laboriously  represented  by  salesmen  who  ap- 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    181 

pear  to  realize  so  slightly  where  their  "prospects"  live  and 
move  and  have  their  being — there  on  the  job  in  the  midst 
of  its  complex  but  absorbing  aggregation  of  compulsions 
and  rewards. 

But  all  this  more  or  less  querulous  philosophizing  may 
mean  merely  that  it's  time  to  ring  the  bell  for  bed — now 
Ithat  I've  done  as  I  find  myself  doing  every  night  in  a  sort 
'of  unconscious  effort  at  "protective  behaviour,"  namely, 
staying  up  as  long  as  feasible  in  order  to  be  as  tired  as  possi- 
ble when  finally  "I  lay  me  down  to  sleep"  in  those  dirty 
sheets  in  that  vile  room  up-stairs. 

Middlesbrough, 
Thursday,  August  26th. 

A  single  day  here  can  bring  a  most  surprising  combina- 
tion of  modem  and  old-fashioned  establishments,  all  com- 
peting with  each  other  in  the  same  district.  It  seems  strange 
that  with  good  jobs  so  near  by,  men  can  be  found  willing  to 
work  where,  for  instance,  two  of  them  have  to  put  all  their 
strength  together  every  time  they  want  to  open  a  furnace- 
door,  as  at  one  of  the  oldest  "stages"  in  the  place,  or  where 
the  firemen  have  to  sweat  all  day  in  the  half-darkness  of 
some  salt-furnaces. 

The  outstanding  thing  is  how  regularly  the  attitude  of 
the  man  at  the  bad  place  reflects  his  surroundings — partly, 
of  course,  because  the  worst  conditions  usually  get  the 
worst  man,  other  things  being  anything  like  equal,  and 
partly  because  these  bad  working  conditions  are  sure  to 
affect  the  worker's  feeUngs  and,  therefore,  of  course,  his 
attitudes;  as,  with  darkness  at  their  backs  and  the  blazings 
in  their  faces,  these  firemen  threw  shovelful  after  shovelful 
into  their  roaring  fire-beds  beneath  the  salt-pans,  they 
looked  like  creatures  of  another  world.  Their  caps  were 
tight-fitting  and  their  trousers  came  only  to  their  knees. 
Their  stockings  were  heavy  and  their  shoes  rough.  They  had 
been  at  the  work  many  years,  and  reported  that  they  were 


182  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

very  glad  to  greet  the  eight-hour  day.  Their  minds  were  not 
well  informed  on  the  coal  strike  and  the  other  issues  of  the 
day  though  their  convictions  were  very  definite  and  very 
"anti."  Though  they  said  they  could  take  a  "blow"  after 
getting  their  fires  going,  it  was  evident  that  the  dim  elec- 
tric Ughts  were  unfavorable  to  reading — or  to  pleasant 
thoughts  about  anything.  The  loaders  up-stairs  around  the 
tanks  were  stripped  to  the  waist  and  working  like  mad. 
But  they  were  in  a  Hght  room  and  they  knew  that  as  soon 
as  they  emptied  the  tanks  and  put  the  clean  white  salt, 
still  warm,  into  the  trucks  or  railway  cars,  they  could  go 
home — with  good  pay  for  a  full  day  in  their  pockets.  It 
was  impossible  to  stop  for  a  chat  with  them,  but  I  would 
wager  real  money  that  their  ideas  would  be  less  radical 
than  those  of  their  mates  in  the  dark  passageway  before 
the  fires  down-stairs.  Practically  always,  too,  the  piece- 
rate  worker  feels  himself  enormously  more  the  captain  of 
his  soul  than  does  the  time-worker. 

At  practically  all  the  local  blast-furnaces  the  casting  of 
the  long  pigs  of  iron  is  done  in  sand-beds  without  any  cover 
anywhere  except  in  the  shanty,  for  a  Httle  loaf  in  between 
jobs.  "It's  no  place  for  a  proper  mon  on  a  wintry  day  w'en 
yer  fice  is  burnin'  and  yer  back's  in  a  bloody  freeze,  like,"  a 
red-faced  but  husky  worker  put  it.  Up  on  the  platform  at 
the  very  top  of  the  big  blast-furnace  the  "mon"  and  his 
helper  emptied  the  hand-carts  of  coke,  "iron-stone,"  and 
limestone  into  the  cupola.  Then  when  the  "bell,"  or  cover, 
was  raised  the  tons  of  materials  for  the  charge,  or  "bur- 
den," disappeared  in  the  huge  maw  of  the  great  upright 
iron  beast  as  the  flame  and  smoke  roared  out  and  up  to  the 
sky — ^while  we  stood  off  and  hunched  our  shoulders  to  keep 
the  mass  of  cinders  from  going  down  our  backs.  Except 
when  in  the  tiny  shed  that  houses  the  weights  which  con- 
trol the  "bell,"  the  two  men  are  exposed  to  every  wind 
that  blows. 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE     183 

Of  course,  against  these  winds  and  rains  the  boss  up  there 
is  anchored  by  his  tonnage  pay.  It  runs  around  thirty 
shillings  a  turn — ''accordin'  to  how  she  works."  The  boy, 
of  course,  also  holds  tight  to  the  platform  and  the  chance 
it  gives  at  his  superior's  job.  Meanwhile  every  worker  knows 
that  every  wind  and  every  cinder  that  makes  the  work 
more  uncomfortable  than  a  similar  job  down  below  has  to 
be  paid  for,  sooner  or  later,  at  so  much  per,  before  responsi- 
ble men  will  stick.  Likewise  it  is  easy  to  observe  from  the 
apologetic  manner  of  the  men  who  confess  themselves  to  be 
working  at  "the  most  out-of-date  smelting  shop  in  the  'ole 
district"  that  the  management  is  either  paying  them  more 
in  order  to  save  their  self-respect — not  very  likely,  prob- 
ably, in  a  country  of  union  rates — or  is  regularly  paying  the 
estabUshed  and  uniform  rate  to  the  poorest  of  the  district's 
workers — ^men  whose  self-respect  among  their  fellows  is 
not  enough  to  take  them  onto  the  "stages,"  of  whose  up- 
to-dateness  they  can  daily  boast  to  their  pals  at  the  pub. 
In  either  case  the  company  is  pretty  certain  to  be  getting 
less  for  the  money  paid  its  men  than  its  better-equipped 
neighbors.  In  addition,  also,  it  is  undoubtedly  having  much 
more  trouble  getting  along  with  them.  Such  men  feel  that 
they  have  the  least  of  any  in  the  neighborhood  to  lose  by 
following  the  agitator — because  they  have  the  poorest  jobs. 
Only  those  that  have  no  job  have  less. 

The  busiest  plant  in  England  was  one  this  afternoon 
where  building,  machinery,  light,  and  arrangement  were  all 
of  the  latest  pattern.  A  youngster  of  a  "third  ladle-man" 
told  me  with  great  enthusiasm  about  his  progress  up  the 
line  of  jobs — ^also  of  his  recent  "  'ohdays"  spent  in  carous- 
ings  with  "beer,  whiskey,  port,  and  'tarts'  (giddy  young 
girls)."  He  showed,  too,  the  loyalty  which  is  likely  to 
underlie  such  remarkable  orderliness  and  surprising  in- 
dustry as  the  place  exhibited  when  he  suggested:  "Say, 
the  boss  'ere  is  the  best  there  is.    'E's  worked  in  Amer- 


184  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

ica,  tco.  W'y  don't  you  just  walk  in  and  ask  'im  for  a 
plyce?" 

If  others  of  the  plants  the  same  executive  is  said  to  man- 
age are  as  good,  the  company  ought  to  make  a  profit  from 
the  work  its  thousands  of  men  turn  out,  after  being  able  to 
pay  the  best  of  wages,  as  it  must  to  get  such  energy.  On 
the  way  out  I  kept  wondering  whether  the  men  were  get- 
ting much  advantage  from  their  wages  in  view  of  the  num- 
ber that  called:  "What's  the  news,  mate?"  At  first  it 
seemed  they  must  be  interested  in  the  Pohsh  war  or  the 
League  of  Nations,  but  my  reports  did  not  get  far.  Of 
course,  they  meant:  ''Did  Iron  Hand  or  White  Glove  win?" 
Later,  outside  the  gates,  when  I  had  a  late-edition  paper  in 
my  hand,  a  chap  hurrying  out  asked  about  a  little  boy.  I 
answered,  yes,  the  little  boy  had  ''gone  down  that  way." 
He  looked  at  me  in  huge  disgust — but  forgave  me  when  I 
let  him  take  my  paper  and  he  quickly  found  to  his  delight 
that  he  had  won  the  five  bob  he  had  been  wise  enough  to 
put  on  "Little  Boy"! 

It  is  to  be  hoped  that  none  of  his  relatives  was  among  the 
band  of  shawl-covered  women  and  towsly-headed  children 
who,  apron  or  bag  in  hand,  were  strenuously  combing  over 
the  cinder-dump  in  the  eager  search  for  tiny  unburned 
"coals."  .  .  .  "The  gov'yment  tells  us  to  economize  so  we 
wants  to  be  patriotic  and  'ere  we  are !" 

The  chances  are  pretty  good — at  least  if  he  loses  much — 
that  my  racing  friend  is  of  the  same  mind  as  a  well-dressed, 
white-mufilered,  and  clean,  though  red-faced,  engineer  en- 
countered at  a  near-by  pub: 

"Yes,  all  of  us  drivers  get  our  pound  a  day — or  there- 
abouts. But  what's  the  use  ?  Ya  can't  save  anything  when 
you  'ave  to  pay  thirty-two  bob  for  these  shoes  w'at  cost, 
say,  twelve  bob  pre-war.  .  .  .  Course  they's  more  drunks 
now.  Thot's  because  o'  the  closin'  hours.  Ya  see,  every- 
body wants  to  get  enough  in  'im  to  'carry  on'  till  openin' 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    185 

time  again.  And  then,  furthermore,  it's  rotten  stuff  nowa- 
days— just  chemicals,  that's  bloody  well  all.  W'y,  one 
company  pays  a  chemist  a  cool  thousan'  pounds  to  make  the 
stuff  knock  you  over  without  fair  killin'  ya!  .  .  .  Yes,  o' 
course,  'alf  of  them  loses  it  on  the  streets.  Thot's  because 
they  drink  it  on  an  empty  stomach.  Now  it's  like  this.:  if 
ya  was  drunk  last  night,  then,  o'  course,  you  didn't  tike  no 
breakfast  this  mornin' — ya  didn't  want  it.  Instead,  ya 
tikes  a  pint  or  two  and  perhaps  some  whiskey  to  steady  up 
with,  like.  Well,  it  won't  stay.  No,  ya  can't  make  it. 
Thot's  w'y  ya  see  it  on  the  street. 

"Yes,  I  'ave  drove  thousands  of  the  American  soldiers 
up  to  the  trenches — ^with  shells  tearin'  up  the  track  all  over 
the  plyce.  Ond  we  engineers  gettin'  only  the  same  wyges 
as  if  we  was  soldiers !  Never  again  fer  me !  Not  any  more 
army  life !  Fed  up !  Goin'  fer  mebbe  a  coupla  days  with- 
out no  food — it  was  shelled  into  garbage  on  the  wye  up, 
mebbe.  No,  sir,  no  more!  .  .  .  Haig,  yes,  'e's  quite  all 
right.  But  I  tell  ya  Kitchyner  was  ambushed.  'E  was  at 
Loos :  I  seen  'im  there  with  my  owne  yes.  There's  somethin' 
queer  there — somethin'  queer.  But,  o'  course  all  them 
bloomin'  hofficers  'ad  to  do  was  to  stay  away  from  the 
lines  and  keep  'emselves  safe — just  like  the  government's 
doin'  now  with  Llide  George  at  the  'ead  of  all  of  'em.  It's 
we  citizens  and  workers  as  must  be  tret  (treated)  better. 
.  .  .  Well,  I'll  see  ya  up  there  at  the  Rose  and  Crown  to- 
morrow at  two." 

It  won't  be  necessary  to  turn  up  if  it  appears  that  more 
opinions  can  be  encountered  elsewhere.  But  it  looks  as 
though  I'll  have  to  leave  town  if  I'm  to  avoid  "following- 
through"  with  a  "first  hand"  left  a  few  hours  ago.  He 
was  on  the  job  at  the  furnace,  but  his  words  reeked  of 
whiskey — also  of  world-wide  adventure  crowded  into  his 
life  in  addition  to  his  twenty-eight  years  on  the  smelting 
stage — ^also,  further^  of  friendUness. 


186  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

"Say,  now,  old  top,  I'll  call  at  your  boardin'-house  Satur- 
day night  an'  you  an'  me  are  the  chaps  as  can  'ave  a  large 
party  together — just  you  an'  me  an'  a  few  glasses  an' 
bottles  an' things,  eh?    Ta!    Ta!    Cheerio  I" 

Bntain's  Pittsburgh, 
Friday,  August  27th. 

That  "one  unfailing  sign  and  sjnnptom  of  fatigue — tem- 
per"— ^is  sure  to  get  a  fellow  pretty  hard  if  he  comes  down 
from  such  discomfort  as  my  open-faced  garret  affords,  es- 
pecially if  then  he  has  to  hold  in  his  hunger  until  the  sloppy 
maids  find  it  in  their  good  pleasure  to  set  on  the  table  the 
usual  ham  and  eggs.  Strangely  enough,  too,  anybody  who 
not  only  feels  as  much  of  a  bum  as  these  nights  make  him 
feel,  but  in  addition  looks  it,  is  very  uncertain  of  his  stand- 
ing even  in  so  punk  a  boarding-house  as  this — so  uncertain 
that  he  hesitates  to  assert  himself  to  the  extent  of  using  a 
little  language  on  those  same  sloppy  maids.  Even  though 
they  look  at  the  moment  still  lower  down  the  scale  than  he 
does,  he  does  well  to  reflect  that  they  have  behind  them  the 
power  to  put  him  out  onto  the  street  if  they  and  their  mis- 
tress don't  like  him.  Besides,  he  must  recall  that  each  eve- 
ning one  of  the  two  takes  her  turn  at  doUing  up  in  a  clean 
waist  and  skirt,  silk  or  near-silk  stockings,  powder  'n'  ev- 
erything. Perhaps  her  hair  still  bears  the  marks  of  last 
night's  grandeur,  in  which  case  it  is  quite  enough  to  cow 
me  with  my  unshaved  face  into  proper  meekness  when  added 
to  the  memory  of  filthy  sheets  and  the  disagreeable  bed- 
fellows of  the  unpleasant  night. 

The  same  dreariness  of  the  up-stairs  which  spills  us 
roomers  in  unpleasant  moods  into  the  dining-room  serves,  of 
course,  at  the  day's  end,  to  hold  us  together  in  the  Uttle  par- 
lor into  the  late  hours.  The  Jamaican  negro  keeps  usually  a 
dignified  silence.  Now  that  he  has  been  promised  a  job  when 
a  certain  steamer  sails,  he  is  considerably  envied  by  several 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    187 

of  us  fellow-boarders  still  in  search  of  work.  Every  evening, 
too,  he  is  either  to  be  seen  making  the  prettier  of  the  maids  a 
little  present  of  fruit  or  else  the  lady  herself  volunteers  the 
information — ^whether  in  the  hope  of  creating  competition,  I 
do  not  know — that,  "Last  night  it  was  chocolates.  Very 
nice  'e  is,  you  know,  and  quite  a  gentleman,  too." 

The  war  bride  of  a  young  engineer  who  appears  to  have 
some  humble  sort  of  work  does  a  very  creditable  job  of 
weaving  into  her  remarks  the  proper  amount  of  alibis  for 
their  present  fortunes — ^as  also  for  their  temporary  unwill- 
ingness to  bother  with  either  home  or  children.  If  energy 
and  determination  are  needed,  she  can  be  counted  on  to 
repair  the  family  prospects  shortly.  Her  stories  of  driving 
her  ambulance  through  dangerous  places  in  France  and 
Flanders,  and,  later,  of  planting  her  strenuous  fist  in  the 
impudent  faces  of  those  who  at  the  docks  were  unlucky 
enough  to  use  a  certain  nasty  word  in  connection  with  her 
husband,  make  you  feel  sure  that  the  proper  job  will  some- 
how and  some  time  be  found  here  or  elsewhere.  Of  course, 
a  certain  impression  of  masculinity  and  force  comes  from 
her  amazingly  free  use  of  some  of  the  war's  worst  profan- 
ity in  combination  with  the  shortness  of  her  closely  bobbed 
black  hair.  With  all  that,  strangely  enough,  appears  also  a 
very  good  education  in  the  schools  of  Canada  and  Paris. 
With  a  better  job  for  husband  and  a  little  more  femininity  for 
her,  they  might  make  a  fine  go  at  politics. 

"Yes,  sir,  I'm  a  bit  of  a  grammarian,  you  know,"  the  tall 
and  quite  respectable-looking  ex-hotel-keeper  just  in  from 
Newcastle  assures  you  with  a  leer  of  proud  certainty  of 
achievement  which  evidently  comes  from  a  certain  number 
of  whiskies.  "Aye,  sir,  'tis  a  matter  most  important,  this 
matter  of  grammar,  and  it's  considerable  study  I've  given 
it.  Take 'rotten.'  Now  you  might  say 'rotten' — 'ow  much 
education  you've  'ad,  I'm  not  knowing,  of  course,  you'll 
pardon  my  sayin'  so,  won't  you? — and  I  might  say  *rotr 


188  PULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

ten' — and  I've  probably  'ad  as  much  as  you,  first  and  last, 
seein'  you'r  'ere  from  America  and  no  job  and  all.  Well, 
now,  as  I  was  sayin',  we'd  both  say  'rotten.'  Yes.  Quite 
all  right.  But  all  the  dictionaries — all  the  best  diction- 
aries, that  is,  and  I  know  them  well,  very  well — they  all 
say  'ly-r-o-t-t-e-n.'  And,  of  course,  I'm  not  a  man  to  con- 
tradict them — not  in  spite  of  the  studyin'  I've  done.  No, 
I'm  not  that  kind  of  man,  you  know  what  I  mean? 

"Languages,  that's  it,  I'm  a  great  man  for  languages — 
languages  and  grammar.  You  see,  I  worked  years  at  night, 
portering  in  an  Aberdeen  hotel  and  had  time  to  learn  sev- 
eral very  fine  languages  from  the  chef.  He  was  an  Eye- 
talian  and  a  very  learned  man — and  a  very  strong  man, 
especially  with  the  drink.  Ten  and  twelve  whiskies  he 
would  take  regular  every  day.  There  was  many  others 
among  the  guests  that  I  could  wish  was  stronger  with  it — 
you  know  what  I  mean?  Take  Americans  for  instance. 
Very  small  tips  they  used  to  give — a  tuppence  or  two — 
very  small.  That  is,  when  they  were  sober.  It  took  a  few 
pints  or  a  few  whiskies  to  make  'em  real  cordial  like  to  the 
'elp.  But  there's  few  of  us  but  are  better  for  a  bit  of  it 
now  and  then.  Good  beer  never  hurt  anybody — and  be- 
sides, the  government's  got  to  'ave  it — 's  a  necessity,  you 
know  what  I  mean?" 

"With  a  bit  of  whiskey  and  he's  quite  all  right,"  his 
sensible-looking  wife  would  add  quietly  when  the  strain  of 
the  conversation — that  is,  the  monologue — would  become 
too  great  and  he  would  all  but  fall  upon  the  table  in  a  doze. 
"But  when  he  takes  much  more  than  his  bit,  it's  best  to 
get  him  to  bed.    I  think  I'll  try  now.    Good  night." 

"It  seems  to  me  a  bit  too  bad,  you  know,"  the  same 
person  came  out  with  at  breakfast  the  next  morning,  in, 
probably,  a  more  or  less  unconscious  effort  to  restore  her 
face,  "that  the  American  Government  loses  so  much  money 
by  means  of  prohibition  that  every  one  of  us  over  here  has 
to  pay  more  for  the  sugar  you  send  us." 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    189 

It  was  a  moment  before  I  could  get  enough  breath  for  a 
reply ! 

Later  in  the  day  her  unhappiness  was  recalled  when  a 
woman  in  a  butcher-shop  explained  that: 

"Of  course,  we  'as  to  ask  more  for  the  British  beef  than 
that  imported  from  America.  There's  a  prejudice  against 
it,  you  see.  That  would  be,  of  course,  because  durin'  the 
war  and  the  rationin',  there  was  some  of  it  bad — ^yes,  very 
bad.  But,  I  must  say,  that  much  of  that  was  the  govern- 
ment's fault.  Often  and  often  it  came  to  us  in  coal  trucks 
(railway  cars)  and  very  dirty  it  was — yes,  very  dirty." 

Since  then  I've  been  finding  comfort  in  the  words  spoken 
about  America  by  an  intelligent-looking  laborer  who  had  to 
reply  with  a  very  unhappy  and  embarrassed  expression, 
"I  'aven't  any  job  just  now,"  when  I  met  him  back  of  one 
of  the  big  furnaces  in  the  busiest  of  all  the  plants: 

"I'm  sorry  I  didn't  sprain  my  ankle  when  I  stepped  onto 
the  gang-plank  to  come  back  from  the  States  that  last  time. 
A  man  over  there  on  your  side  of  the  water  'as  better  wages 
and  better  living — better  every  way,  as  I  see  it — more  self- 
respect.  .  .  .  No,  I  can't  go  back — the  fares  are  too  much 
for  the  wife  and  three  children  I  got  now.  And  they  was 
all  born,  you  might  say,  'omeless.  You  see,  we  can't  get 
anything  but  one  room  in  the  whole  town,  that  crowded  it 
is,  now  since  the  war.  .  .  .  'First  'and'  I  was  before  I  lost 
it.  Now,  I'll  be  bloody  lucky  to  get  set  on  as  bricklayer's 
'elper.  And  if  I  do  get  on,  I'm  fearin'  the  leaders  will  be 
takin'  pounds  out  o'  my  pocket  with  their  strikin's  and 
agitatin's  now  that  the  miners  look  to  be  makin'  trouble." 

Luckily  I  had  moved  away  just  in  time  to  sidestep  the 
threat  which  came  to  him  most  vociferously  from  a  gafifer 
who  had  evidently  seen  him  and  his  sad  face  before: 

"I'll  not  be  tellin'  ye  again !  Move  along  now,  and  be  off  I 
Or  I'll  see  ye're  locked  up  fer  loiterin' !" 

It  was  probably  the  contagious  depression  of  the  man's 
mood  that  brought  my  own  low  breakfast  spirits  close  to 


190  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

the  explosion  point  a  little  later  when  I  tried  to  get  in  touch 
with  a  company  executive  by  using  the  telephone  at  the  cen- 
tral post-office. 

There  are  only  two  'phones  there  at  the  centre  of  a  dis- 
trict of  about  140,000  people.  One  of  those  is  usually  en- 
gaged with  "Toll."  The  other  has  to  be  properly  wooed 
with  the  ringing  of  the  handle  at  the  side  and  the  pressing 
of  the  receiver  at  your  ear.  When  with  good  luck  you  get 
a  chance  to  give  the  number  and  are  exhorted  to  "Hold 
on!"  you  feel  that  at  least  the  right  expression  is  used  for 
the  maximum  of  grim  patience  and  everlasting  pertinacity 
required.  One  by  one  you  press  the  two  or  three  single 
pennies  into  the  slot  for  the  ringing  of  the  bell  and  if  all  is 
working  well  you  are  again  admonished  to  "Hold  on!" 
A  little  later  when  you  have  raised  your  voice  to  its  maxi- 
mum carrying  power,  the  clerk  at  the  other  end  advises 
sweetly  that  you  should  "Speak  a  bit  louder,  please.  You 
see,  they  can't  hear  you,  sir!" 

"Be  good-natured  until  ten  o'clock.  The  rest  of  the  day 
will  take  care  of  itself."  If  that  sign  were  on  any  desk 
here,  as  it  used  to  be  a  long  time  ago  at  home,  I  think  it 
would  be  wise  to  put  off  the  use  of  the  government  'phone 
until,  say,  eleven,  at  the  earUest. 

Of  course,  there  ere  enough  makers  of  telephone  com- 
plaints at  home.  The  cure  of  such  would  doubtless  proceed 
rapidly  if  they  could  be  given  a  short  treatment  here,  be- 
ginning with  the  search  past  numberless  shops  and  apothe- 
caries for  the  very  rare  station  at  some  newsdealer's — ^with, 
usually,  the  admonition  that  for  "trunk"  or  toll  calls  you 
must  go  to  the  central  post-office! — followed  next  by  the 
search  for  the  pocketful  of  pennies  required  to  make  more 
than  one  or  two  calls.  Probably  it  is  just  as  well  for  the 
preservation  of  the  proverbial  British  evenness  of  keel  and 
temper  that  very  slight  use  is  apparently  made  of  the 
'phone  here.    The  number-book  for  this  whole  district  con- 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    191 

tains  only  eighteen  pages,  at  about  150  subscribers  to  the 
page — a  total  of  2,700  for  about  140,000  of  population — 
about  two  per  hundred.  Somehow  or  other  I  must  find  out 
how  that  compares  with  an  average  city  at  home — ^and, 
also,  if  possible,  the  cause  of  what  is  most  obviously  behind 
much  of  the  trouble,  namely,  very  bad  equipment.  From 
all  that  can  be  learned,  charges  are  felt  to  be  extremely 
high.  Wonder  if  either  the  inefficiency  or  the  reputed  ex- 
pensiveness  of  the  service  can  be  traced  in  any  way  back  to 
that  source  of  so  many  other  evils,  "Full  up !"  It  would  be 
easy  to  think  of  such  telephones  as  one  cause  of  the  general 
criticism  of  the  government,  operated  as  they  are  by  it, 
except  for  the  fact  that,  in  the  nature  of  the  case,  compara- 
tively few  of  the  general  body  of  citizens  can  afford  to  have 
much  to  do  with  it. 

Perhaps  this  very  abstinence  is  one  of  the  reasons  behind 
the  fact  that  every  day — even  such  a  weary  and  near- 
explosive  one  as  to-day — increases  the  original  impression 
that  the  district  contains  comparatively  few  radicals  or 
revolutionaries.  So  far,  there  hasn't  been  a  sign  of  the  street 
discussions  of  matters  poUtical  and  economic  such  as  filled 
so  many  streets  in  Glasgow — as  also  both  the  working  and 
non-working  hours  in  the  Welsh  mine!  A  good  many  of 
the  homes  I  find  are  pretty  bad.  The  worst  of  them,  how- 
ever, are  pretty  sure  to  belong  to  stevedores  and  other  dock 
workers,  even  though  they  are  located  quite  close  to  the 
steel  plants  down  in  the  very  dirtiest  and  smokiest  part  of 
the  town.  There,  by  the  way,  is  one  of  the  vilest  eating 
places  yet  encountered  on  the  whole  trip.  I  was  amazed 
to  find  how  soon  I  got  used  to  the  awfuUest  of  smells  and 
had  no  difficulty  making  a  fearful  aggregation  of  meat  and 
potatoes  take  the  edge  off  a  very  sharp  appetite.  Neverthe- 
less, it  is  fairly  certain  that  the  families  who  live  down 
there — and  doubtless  have  lived  there  a  long  time — are  con- 
siderably less  happy  than  those  who  Uve  in  the  other  parts 


192  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

of  the  city  where  the  dirt  is  much  less,  though  it  is  scarcely 
what  anybody  would  call  a  spotless  town.  Some  of  the 
youngsters  who  followed  me  along  the  street  as  I  ate  a  few 
cakes  out  of  a  newspaper  sack  were  certainly  more  than 
grateful  for  the  share  they  got  of  them.  The  men  about 
the  docks  appear  to  think  an  average  earning  of  13-16-0 
extremely  good — taking  good  days  with  bad.  They  were 
getting  bothered  by  jobless  men  drifting  onto  the  docks 
from  other  parts  of  the  country  where  the  mills  are  less  busy. 

Every  night  appears  to  bring  its  contacts  with  the  drink 
problem — right  on  the  main  street,  too,  not  more  than  a 
few  rods  from  the  boarding-house  on  a  side  street. 

"Twenty  pounds  a  week  that  roller  there  is  a-mikin' 
noow!"  a  well-dressed  young  mechanic  exclaimed  last 
night  with  a  nudge  as  we  passed  a  neat-appearing  and 
well-built  working  man.  "A  level-'eaded  chap,  'e  is,  that's 
sure.  See  'ow  strite  'e's  walkin' !  As  sober  as  you  or  me ! 
On  twenty  pounds  a  week !  Well,  if  thot  was  me,  you'd  see 
me  rollin'  'ome  now  in  a  taxi — if  it  wasn't  my  friends 
a-tikin'  me — ^me  and  the  load  I'd  be  carryin' ! .  .  .  Well,  of 
course,  I  learned  most  of  me  drinkin'  in  the  army.  In  the 
army  there's  nothin'  else  to  do,  ye  see,  whether  ye're  'ere, 
at  'ome,  or  abroad,  but  drink." 

The  hags  that  once  were  women  are  depressing  enough — 
you  come  upon  them  in  the  back  streets,  perhaps,  just  as 
they  are  getting  up  from  the  gutter  where  some  drunken 
would-be  lover  has  knocked  them,  shouting  dreadful  and 
obscene  sex  profanities  after  their  abusers  or  at  the  calm 
and  capable  ''bobbies"  who  are  trying  to  urge  them  home 
in  quietness  and  decency.  So,  also,  are  the  men  who  show 
plainly  enough  that  their  better  and  soberer  days  are  now 
in  a  far-distant  past.  But  easily  the  worst  of  all  for  what 
they  have  to  say  about  the  future  are  the  well-dressed  and 
dapper  young  men  with  their  white  collars  or  clean,  neat 
mufflers  as  they  stagger  by  and  call  out  their  indelicate 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    193 

flippancies  to  the  still  younger  girls  who  blush  and  giggle  as 
they  parade  up  and  down  past  the  lighted  windows  in  their 
very  conscious  efforts  to  attract  attention  of  this  beau  or 
that,  sober,  if  possible,  but,  at  any  rate,  a  beau. 

It  isn't  as  bad  as  it  will  be  Saturday  night  or  Sunday — 
or  Friday — and,  except  on  those  nights,  the  vomitings  seem 
fairly  well  restrained.  But  the  policeman  says  that  the 
week  has  been  showing  more  drunkenness  each  night  as  it 
progresses,  owing  to  the  fact  that  last  week  was  mainly  a 
holiday,  with,  therefore,  a  little  time  required  before  the 
usual  gait  can  be  attained ! 

"Oh,  aye!  I  'as  a  family  oop  Newcastle  wye,"  a  very 
muddled  Northerner  answered  last  night  as  we  found  our- 
selves together  admiring  a  fine  piece  of  Scotch  woollens 
labelled,  "Only  ninety  shillings  the  suit !"  "No,  there's  no 
job  fer  a  mon  'ere — not  as  I  knows  of.  Oonless  yer  could 
get  a  berth  on  a  boat,  mebbe.  Awnd  fer  thot  a  mon  moost, 
o'  course,  be  a  British  citizen  awnd  'ave  'is  pipers  (papers) 
right  'andy  like.  Awnd  'ere  I  am  wi'  me  own  bloody  pipers 
lost,  too,  since  I  came  to  this town !" 

"That's  fair  'ard  luck.  Then  you  and  me  is  a  long  way 
down  the  drain — besides  one  of  us  bein'  well  'up  the  pole' 
(drunk),"  was  the  best  that  I  could  do  for  him. 

"Well,  I'm  bloo-ody  glad  thot  the  Poles  is  gettin'  on  a 
bit,  onywyes!"  was  his  own  brilliant  and  cosmopolitan 
repartee  as  he  lurched  out  into  the  street  there  to  miss  a 
motor  by  the  hair's  breadth  of  the  proverbial  drunken  man's 
luck. 

On  the  whole,  the  wisest  way  of  trying  to  get  a  more  in- 
spirational view  of  things  is  to  go  up-stairs  to  bed,  now  that, 
as  usual,  I've  stayed  up  as  long  as  custom  seems  to  per- 
mit. Perhaps  if  I  don't  Ught  my  candle  I  can  forget  the 
color  of  those  sheets.  With  all  the  successful  executions 
I've  been  staging  these  last  few  mornings,  prospects  ought 
to  be  fairly  good  for  a  restful  night. 


194  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Middlesbrough, 

Friday  Evening,  August  27th. 

Everybody  here,  apparently,  is  willing  to  admit  that  the 
London  steel  people  were  right  when  they  named  this 
place  as  the  centre  of  Britain's  iron  and  steel  industry.  Ac- 
cording to  the  local  legend,  it  all  started  from  a  fellow- 
townsman's  toe — possibly  in  combination  with  a  certain 
amount  of  temper.  While  hunting,  this  man  gave  his  toe  an 
unusually  painful  stubbing  on  what  he  had  a  right  to  re- 
sent as  an  unusually  hard  piece  of  rock.  It  is  easy  to  imag- 
ine how,  as  he  gritted  his  teeth  with  the  pain,  he  first  made 
a  grab  for  the  poor  toe;  then  how  his  pain  gave  way,  a  mo- 
ment later,  perhaps,  to  indignation  at  his  clumsy — ^and  pain- 
ful— awkwardness;  how  that,  in  turn,  was  perhaps  assuaged 
by  the  determination  to  save  his  face,  as  it  were,  by  learn- 
ing if  that  particular  piece  of  stone  could  not  be  shown 
harder  and  heavier  than  it  had  any  normal  right  to  be,  in 
which  case  there  would  be  more  excuse  for  his  otherwise 
unpardonable  awkwardness !  Anyhow,  the  story  goes  that 
he  took  the  offending  rock  to  a  man  for  assaying  and  in 
that  way  discovered  that  the  stuff  was  really  not  stone  at 
all  but  iron!  Anybody  that  has  ever  shovelled  the  stuff 
knows  how  heavy  it  is !  One  of  the  most  successful  of  all 
the  local  companies  now  bears  the  hunter's  name  as  its 
founder  and  successful  head.  The  forty-three  blast-fur- 
naces which  nightly  liglit  the  district's  skies  and  throw  their 
glare  upon  the  city's  streets  are  all  so  many  brilliant  monu- 
ments to  his  good  protestant  toe  and  questioning  disposition 
if  not  his  temper.  Doubtless  the  owner  of  these  properties 
of  body  and  mind  also  had  considerable  to  do  with  the  great 
improvement  on  the  Tees  River  by  means  of  the  use  of  the 
slag,  for  straightening  its  channel  down  to  the  near-by  sea. 
It  was  on  the  shores  of  that  sea,  by  the  way,  that  the  first 
ore-mining  is  said  to  have  been  done — ^by  men  going  about 
with  no  other  mining  tools  than  two  hands  and  an  open  bag ! 

This  same  district  also  saw  the  installation  of  the  world's 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE     195 

first  steam-railway  system.  It  was  the  foresight  of  two 
Quakers  renowned  for  their  level-headed  shrewdness — Ed- 
ward and  Joseph  Pease,  by  name — that  helped  the  inventor, 
George  Stephenson,  to  estabhsh  the  country's  first  rail 
service.  For  many  years  the  original  engine  ran  between 
the  near-by  towns  of  Stockton  and  Darlington.  "Hi've  seed 
men  thot  was  drivers  themselves  on  the  old  hengine,  mind 
ye,"  an  old  fellow  in  one  of  the  pubs  assured  me,  while  one 
of  his  ancient  mates  added  with  a  nod  that  in  the  old  days 
they  used  to  start  the  fire  with  the  help  of  a  sun-glass.  In 
that  case,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  under  such  cloudy  skies 
the  train  did  not  have  to  depend  exclusively  on  that  for  the 
making  of  its  schedule. 

The  chief  difficulty  with  which  the  district  has  to  con- 
tend is  that  both  the  quantity  and  the  quality  of  the  local 
ore  are  running  out. 

"Unfortunately  local  or  'Cleveland'  iron  stone  is  very 
low-grade  stuff — ^about  33  per  cent — ^when  we  do  get  it. 
When  the  price  of  steel  products  goes  down,  we'll  hardly  be 
able  to  bother  with  it  and  the  costliness  of  the  labor  of  get- 
ting it,  in  spite  of  its  nearness.  .  .  .  The  minimum  wage 
gives  the  miners  here  a  minimum  of  seventeen  shillings  for  a 
seven-hour  day." 

The  same  group  of  executives  in  one  of  the  large  companies 
where  I  established  contact  went  on  from  this  statement  to  a 
very  frank  discussion  of  the  local  labor  situation : 

"Labor  has  probably  been  somewhat  spoiled  by  having 
almost  every  one  of  its  demands  complied  with  for  the  sake 
of  winning  the  war.  Some  of  the  leaders  see  now  the  neces- 
sity for  accepting  some  of  the  setbacks  that  business  in 
general  expects  to  have  to  accept — lower  prices,  lessened 
profits,  and  all  that.  But  for  the  rank  and  file,  the  only  way 
will  probably  be  the  way  of  losing  this  or  that  fight  for  higher 
or  even  the  same  wages  as  before.  That's  quite  likely  to  be 
the  result  of  the  miners'  strike  now  on  the  way. 

"In  our  opinion  a  union — and  a  whole  trade,  or  craft,  or 


196  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

company,  or  industry,  for  that  matter — ^will  suffer  in  the 
long  run  if  its  poUcies  are  not  worked  out  to  produce  long- 
run  fairness  and  to  show  long-run  consideration.  For  in- 
stance, take  the  engineers  and  'the  more  skilled  mechanics. 
During  the  war  they  decided  that  they  must  not  be  asked 
to  go  to  fight  because  they  were  too  much  needed  at  home. 
That  was  their  own  decision,  you  understand.  Well,  at 
the  same  time,  we  had  to  work  out  machines  for  getting  the 
munitions  faster  than  they  were  willing  to  give  them  to  us 
— ^automatic  and  what  you  call  fool-proof  machines  that  a 
general  laborer  could  get  big  results  from — ^and  big  pay, 
too.  Sometimes,  of  course,  this  general  laborer  could  run 
several  machines.  Then  the  engineer  fellows  tried  to  stop 
that  by  insisting  on  'One  machine,  one  man!'  They,  of 
course,  tried  all  the  harder  when  they  saw  unskilled  men 
who  had  never  gone  through  any  period  of  apprenticeship 
getting  more  on  payment  by  results  than  they  were  getting 
working  on  time,  after  they  had  resisted  piece-work,  you 
see.  But  most  of  us  felt  that  it  was  because  of  their  own 
overselfish  short-sightedness.  In  general,  you'll  find  that 
those  unions  have  lost  standing  not  only  with  the  masters 
(owners)  but  also  with  the  workers  in  general. 

''The  unions  as  a  general  thing  want  to  be  quite  fairly 
reasonable  if  treated  with  understanding;  it  is  the  manage- 
ment's fault  where  it  loses  control  of  its  own  shop  to  the 
unions.  Of  course,  giving  a  man  the  sack  is  a  very  serious 
thing — especially  if  he  has  worked  up  to  be,  say,  a  first  or 
second  hand  on  the  smelters.  If  he  has  to  leave  here  then 
he  has  to  start  at  the  bottom — at  or  near  general  labor — in 
the  other  shop,  for  none  of  those  there  should  be  set  aside 
in  order  to  give  him  a  place  up  the  line.  That  being  so, 
perhaps  it's  not  so  bad,  you  know,  for  the  union  to  watch 
that  nobody  gets  the  sack  unjustly.  Where  we  have  found 
a  man  loafing  and  have  sacked  him,  we  have  often  been 
able  to  insist  upon  his  crowd's  showing  more  energy  before 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    197 

we  will  consent  to  reinstate  him.  In  one  case  where  the 
men  asked  that  300  pieces  should  constitute  a  full  day's 
work,  we  officers  ourselves  went  out  and  showed  that  1,000 
was  easy.  The  men's  representative  laughed,  and  the  next 
day  his  men — just  to  show  what  poor  workers  we  officer 
chaps  were — did  5,000 !  We  were  perfectly  glad  to  agree  on 
1,000,  however. 

"Yes,  if  a  man  has  got  drunk,  has  stolen,  or  committed 
some  other  crime  before  the  law,  we  have  to  be  rather  quick, 
you  know,  to  show  our  displeasure  by  discharging  him.  If  we 
wait  until  after  the  court  has  sentenced  him,  the  union  is 
likely  to  insist  that  he  has  been  punished  twice,  just  as  in 
the  case  of  the  railway  men  who  stole  the  pianos. 

"The  claim  of  the  Electrical  Trades  Union  that  a  worker 
should  retain  his  union  membership  when  he  becomes  a 
foreman  is  a  bit  more  comphcated  than  it  looks.  You  see, 
if  he  gave  up  his  membership  and  then  happened  to  lose 
his  job  he  would  probably  have  to  start  at  general  labor 
before  he  could  get  another  job.  At  least  he  would  have 
to  compete  with  other  men  who  had  the  same  experience  on 
their  cards  as  he  and  then  had  union  cards  in  addition. 
And  for  the  most  part,  in  steel  when  we  need  men  we  ask 
the  union  officer  to  supply  them.  Generally  they  are  used 
more  by  the  iron  and  steel  employers  than  the  government's 
labor  exchanges.  Besides  this  trouble  with  the  job,  there- 
fore, the  worker-foreman  who  left  his  union  would  also  lose 
the  union's  old-age  annuity  benefits — ^af  ter  paying  into  them, 
perhaps  for  thirty  years.  So  we  generally  have  them  con- 
tinue here  in  the  union  but  without  attending  meetings — 
which  the  men,  as  well  as  we,  find  quite  all  right." 

After  talking  during  the  last  day  or  two  with  a  number  of 
other  employers,  the  reasonableness  of  their  view-point 
seems  typical  of  the  whole  district,  at  least  so  far  as  iron 
and  steel  are  concerned.  All  seem  to  agree  that  the  old 
twelve-hour  day  was  too  long — ^also  that  the  short  day  has 


198  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

been  in  operation  for  too  short  a  time  to  show  how  it  can 
increase  output,  the  higher  positions  which  require  ordi- 
narily a  number  of  years  of  training  now  being  "diluted" 
with  workers  who  had  to  be  moved  up  the  line  rapidly  in 
order  to  fill  the  additional  third  shift.  At  one  big  estab- 
lishment a  dispute  is  now  on  with  the  rollers.  It  seems  that 
a  new  set  of  rolls  has  just  been  put  into  operation — much 
bigger  and  more  modem  than  anything  in  the  district.  In 
view  of  its  huge  cost  as  an  extremely  intricate  and  sensitive 
piece  of  machinery,  the  management  claims  that  responsi- 
bility for  its  operation  and  up-keep  must  be  given  to  a  highly 
trained  mechanic  or  fitter.  The  union  insists  that,  being  a 
pair  of  rolls,  it  must  inevitably  be  under  the  charge  of  a 
roller. 

"And  there  you  are!  But  considering  that  it  is  our  ma- 
chine and  represents  our  capital,  we  shall  insist  that  it  is 
for  us  and  not  our  workers  to  say.  That  is  a  quite  reason- 
able claim,  is  it  not?" 

The  splendid  thing  is  that  no  one  of  these  officials,  whether 
they  are  regular  superintendents  or  in  one  or  two  cases  labor 
managers,  appears  to  fear  that  between  them  and  the  shop 
committees  which  comprise  the  union  representatives  there 
is  any  great  probability  that  any  issue  will  be  settled  wrongly 
for  either  side.  Such  confidence  is,  of  course,  the  very  be- 
ginning of  justice  and  fair  dealing  because  it  cuts  the  ground 
from  under  the  feet  of  fear-^feet  which  can  always  be 
counted  upon  to  run  in  the  direction  of  the  fightings  and 
bickerings  and  meannesses  called  out  whenever  self-preser- 
vation is  apparently  threatened.  Apparently,  too,  this  con- 
fidence is  the  splendid  flower  of  thirty  years  or  more  of 
friendly  relations  between  the  managers  and  the  men. 

This  same  impression  of  remarkably  reasonable  and 
peaceful  relations  on  what  long  has  been  a  very  hectic 
sector  of  the  industrial  front  in  America  is  born  out  of  my 
chat  this  morning  with  one  of  the  heads  of  the  blast-furnace- 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    199 

men — a  big,  heavy-mustached  possessor  of  a  body  made 
strong  and  husky  and  a  head  made  level,  if  not  highly 
tutored,  by  twenty  years  of  hard  work  around  the  cast- 
house  and  the  pig-bed. 

"Ever  since  1897  we  'ave  'ad  the  three  shifts  on  the  fur- 
naces; the  j&rst  in  the  land  was  'ere,  too.  Awful  it  was  be- 
fore then!  Awful!  We  used  to  fall  asleep  right  there  on 
the  job — over  our  food,  perhaps.  Often.  Many  times,  too, 
I've  seen  me  cryin'  with  the  blood  on  my  'ands — and  me 
that  doon  in." 

He  is  a  Socialist  but  does  not  seem  to  be  "working  at  it," 
possessing  as  he  does  a  great  respect  for  all  the  leaders 
among  the  local  manufacturers  and  feeling  that  his  group 
of  workers  have  more  than  maintained  themselves  in  wages 
and  hours  and  general  prestige  in  comparison  with  the  other 
workers  of  the  country.  His  union  enroUs  most  of  the  coun- 
try's blast-furnacemen  but  is  apparently  one  of  the  com- 
paratively few  remaining  unaMiated  with  the  Iron  and  Steel 
Trades  Confederation.  "They're  too  autocratic.  My  men 
can  give  me  the  sack  on  three  months'  notice.  The  'eads 
of  the  confederation  we  think  too  sure  of  their  jobs — too 
independent  and  too  fond  o'  London." 

"Besides  the  three  shifts — and  we  believe  that  has  in- 
creased output  by  25  per  cent — the  other  big  thing  is  good 
wages — our  men  have  increased  250  per  cent  over  pre-war — 
and  the  sliding  scale  for  payment  by  results.  By  that,  when 
the  cost  of  living  goes  up,  the  selling  price  of  our  standard 
Cleveland  iron  stone  generally  goes  up  with  it.  That  takes 
up  our  tonnage  wage  rates  automatically,  as  you  might  say. 
Then  we  have  good  arrangements  for  settling  all  disputes. 
Our  union  representative,  for  one  thing,  must  be  a  worker 
there  at  the  job — right  at  the  furnace,  one  of  the  men — ^not 
what  you  call  a  walking  delegate.  The  men  at  the  plant 
elect  him.  He  goes  first  to  the  manager  after  the  foreman 
has  been  unable  to  fix  something  that's  gone  wrong.    After 


200  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

that  the  manager  is  asked  to  see  a  deputation,  perhaps  from 
the  local  council  made  up  of  the  delegates  from  all  the  local 
shops.  After  that  it's  taken  up  by  two  chosen  from  the 
council  and  two  from  the  managers.  Then  it  goes  up  for 
arbitration  by  a  national  group.  But  it  seldom  gets  half 
that  way,  now  that  we've  come  better  to  understand  each 
other." 

As  one  might  judge  after  going  about  in  the  blasts  with 
their  uncovered  cast  beds,  he  seemed  to  have  thought  lit- 
tle about  conditions  of  work  outside  the  shorter  hours — 
probably  because  the  pressure  from  the  men  has  kept  him 
too  busy  on  wages  and  such  matters. 

"No,  we're  not  for  the  men  bathin'  at  the  plant,  though 
they  do  often  come  'ome  wet  through  from  workin'  in  the 
'eat  an'  the  rain.  Men  don't  take  proper  changes  of  clothes 
for  the  bathin' — and  they  use  too  much  'ot  water.  A 
friend  an'  pal  o'  mine  died  that  way.  No,  we're  not  for 
that." 

"Prohibition?  No,  we're  not  for  that,  either!  You  see, 
all  'ot  workers — furnacemen  and  smelters — they  must  have 
their  beer,  you  know.  Still,  I  will  say,  there's  too  many 
that's  big  earners  but  drink  it  all  up.  I  regret  to  say,  also, 
that  in  some  classes  we  started  'ere  among  the  men,  in 
chemistry  and  iron-makin',  you  know,  the  Irish  and  the 
Scotchmen  stuck  it  out  and  the  English  quit." 

According  to  a  worker  in  a  cinder-pit  the  other  day,  one 
reason  John  Barleycorn  is  such  an  enemy  of  the  worker  is 
that  nowadays,  besides  being  much  more  expensive,  "the 
stuff's  so  weak  that  ye  'ave  ter  drink  twice  as  much  of  it 
as  befoor.  In  the  old  days  ye  cood  get  drunk  on  a  shillin'; 
now  it  costs  nearer  a  pound!  Some  o'  them  as  'as  more 
money  than  ever  afoor  the  war  fair  swill  it,  but  'tis  not  so 
bad — the  drunkenness,  ye  oonderstawnd — now  as  'twas  ten, 
twenty  year  ago,  not  by  fair  odds.    It  costs  too  much !" 

Somehow  or  other  beer  or  whiskey  seems  to  get  into  nearly 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    201 

every  discussion.  Of  all  the  comments  yet  encountered 
that  to-day  from  one  of  the  executives  is  the  oddest — that 
prohibition  here  is  likely  to  lead  to  race  suicide  for  the  rea- 
son that  any  sober  working  man  would  hesitate  to  bring 
children  into  such  bad  conditions  of  Uving  as  many  of  the 
country's  cities  furnish ! 

The  only  answer  to  that  would  seem  to  be  the  thought 
that  either  those  conditions  be  ended  with  better  houses 
which  men  might  build,  with  less  chance  for  drink,  or  else 
that  the  number  be  decreased  of  those  who  are  born  into 
them  to  crawl  about  on  the  bent  and  weazened  httle  legs 
that  bespeak  that  distemper  of  poverty  which  one  of  the 
continental  nations  has  been  unkindly  observant  enough  to 
call  "the  Enghsh  disease." 

Well,  at  least,  it's  hopeful  to  see  that  managers  and 
workers  are  immensely  nearer  to  each  other  here  than  any- 
where yet  encountered,  even  though  it  might  be  wished 
that  they  differed  somewhat  more  in  their  attitude  on  what 
appears  to  an  outsider  as  such  a  comphcation  in  the  whole 
problem.  Evidently  the  industry  as  a  whole  here  has  not 
yet  run  into  the  hard  times  which  some  of  the  financial 
leaders  see  coming.  In  a  new  plant  here  is  to  be  seen  such 
a  collection  of  the  most  modern  and  up-to-date  electrical 
equipment  of  rolls  and  furnaces  as  any  establishment  in 
the  world  would  be  proud  to  show.  And  near  by  are  workers 
living  in  a  brand-new  model  town  with  pretty  streets  curv- 
ing about  attractive  four-rooms-and-bath  homes  built  to 
sell  at  700  to  900  pounds — only  $2,800  at  the  pound  ster- 
ling's present  value.  They  appear  well  constructed,  too, 
around  a  framework  of  angle-iron  fabricated  in  the  town's 
own  steel  plant. 

Altogether  this  whole  place  gives  a  fellow  hope.  If  these 
employers  and  these  workers  can  get  together  as  well  as 
they  have,  then  it  ought  to  be  possible  elsewhere.  Here 
are  reasonable,  fair,  and  forward-looking  leaders  both  of 


202  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

men  and  managers — and  here,  it  certainly  must  be  evident, 
are  more  than  a  few  reasons  for  the  same. 

Evidently  nothing  of  this  reassuring  sort  has  as  yet  been 
found  in  the  coal-fields,  at  least  nothing  substantially  calm 
and  cool  enough  to  offset  the  radicalism  of  my  old  buddies 
back  there  in  Wales.  Every  day  the  outlook  for  the  walk- 
out of  the  miners  in  the  whole  country  grows  worse;  though, 
as  might  be  imagined,  nearly  all  the  workers,  as  well  as  the 
citizens  in  general,  dread  it  greatly  and  hope  that  somehow 
it  may  be  avoided.  According  to  the  morning  papers  Swan- 
sea had  begun  to  buy  coal  from  America!  Swansea  there 
almost  at  the  mouth  of  the  great  Welsh  coal  district — 
Swansea,  of  all  places!  Well,  it  will  be  worth  while  to- 
morrow over  at  Barnsley,  the  capital  of  the  Yorkshire  coal 
area,  to  see  what  can  be  learned  in  this  absorbing — yes,  I'll 
say  this  thriUing — game  of  trying  to  find  the  connection 
between  men's  working  conditions  and  their  active,  their 
working  convictions,  between  the  state  of  their  body's  mus- 
cles and  the  coolness  or  the  "het-up-ness"  of  their  soul's 
"mentals."  Barnsley  is  a  pretty  long  jump  from  here  as 
distances  go,  so  here's  hoping  for  a  better  than  usual  night's 
sleep. 

Later. 

Of  all  the  luck ! 

Before  facing  those  sheets  up-stairs — even  in  the  candle's 
light — it  looked  good  to  take  a  turn  'round.  Outside  a 
workmen's  store  or  shop  for  selling  and  distributing  Social- 
ist and  similar  literature  I  happened  onto  two  interesting- 
looking  men,  one  of  them  a  member  of  the  local  Socialist 
council.  They  are  quite  thoughtful  fellows  and  were  greatly 
interested  in  my  coming  from  America;  they  reported  all 
the  British  Sociahsts  as  setting  great  store  by  Jack  London, 
of  whose  writings  the  shop  sold  large  quantities.  They 
seem  to  think  it  hopeless  to  try  to  change  the  present  order 
of  affairs  gradually  by  any  attempt  to  make  any  diagnosis 


WITH  THE  'ANDS  ON  SMELTING  STAGE    203 

of  the  causes  of  the  world's  present  unhappiness — "There's 
17,000  tons  of  soot  and  cinders  falling  into  this  town  every 
year.  Now  what  can  a  man  do  with  that !"  But,  neverthe- 
less, after  we  had  got  each  other's  confidence,  one  of  them 
in  the  hearing  of  his  pal  told  his  troubles — and  my  ears 
were  delighted  as  he  told  them,  too. 

"Well,  I'm  fair  puzzled  over  it  all.  'Ere  I  work  the  'ole 
of  a  bloody  year.  Awnd  what  do  I  get  to  show  for  it? 
Nothin' !  All  the  time  tryin'  to  get  these  bloody  steel  men 
into  the  radical  organizations  for  givin'  ourselves  a  fair 
start  alongside  of  the  wonderful  things  they've  done — the 
workin'  men,  ye  understawnd — ^in  Russia.  But  not  a  look 
do  these  steel  fellows  give  me,  not  one.  I'm  fair  like  to  lose 
me  job  unless  I  can  get  some  of  them  in  for  my  report." 

With  the  nods,  and  for  the  most  part  the  general  assent, 
of  his  pal,  who  has  grown  up  in  Middlesbrough,  it  was 
agreed  between  us  that  "there's  a  reason"  for  such  commu- 
nity view-points,  and  that  in  this  particular  case  these  rea- 
sons were  very  close  to  such  as  the  following,  to  wit: 

First,  the  steadiness  of  the  Middlesbrough  steel  jobs; 
second,  the  absence  of  "tiredness  and  temper"  favored  by 
the  shortness  of  these  same  jobs  on  the  three-shift  system 
and  the  comparative  comfort  of  the  town's  four  and  six 
room  houses,  built  frequently  with  bath,  thirty  instead  of  a 
hundred  and  thirty  years  old,  as  in  some  cases  on  the  Clyde 
bank;  thirdly,  the  poor  chance  for  suspicion  and  distrust 
which  grows  up  where  worker  and  "mawster"  are  on  such 
good  terms  as  in  Middlesbrough;  and,  fourthly  and  finally, 
the  self-respect  which  grows  up  out  of  such  regularity,  such 
good,  decent  surroundings,  and  such  good  confidence  and 
sharing,  especially  when  these  are  aided  by  good  wages 
which,  by  means  of  the  shding  scale,  automatically  keep 
pace — ^and  more  than  pace — ^with  the  cost  of  living. 

As  a  parting  shot  they  asked  how  it  comes  about  that 
there  are  so  many  Sociahsts — and  such  active  ones — "over 


204  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Lancashire  way"  where  they  have  such  "good  wages,  good 
gaffers,  and  all."  Luckily  I  could  alibi  myself  out  of  an- 
swering the  question  because  I  hadn't  visited  that  part  of 
the  country  and  if  they'd  give  me  a  chance  I'd  sure  enough 
find  that  "reason  there,  too — bad  livin'  conditions,  ir- 
regular work,  or  somethin'." 

No,  I'm  going  stronger  than  ever  on  human  nature  and 
on  the  general  proposition  that  "Men  are  square!" 

And  that,  too,  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  the  evening  paper 
says  that  "fifty  thousand  war  widows  have  been  found  by 
the  government  to  be  living  with  unmarried  men  in  order 
not  to  lose  the  pension  of  20/  given  widows  under  40,  the 
26/8  given  to  those  over  36,  etc.,  etc." 

At  least  this  can  be  said :  that  there  is  no  great  underly- 
ing difference  within  human  nature  itself  in  the  different 
countries.  Such  a  difference  surely  could  not  exist,  and 
still  favor  the  amazing  way  a  man  hears  the  same  senti- 
mental announcement  every  time  a  crowd  of  boys  and  girls 
go  singing  by  whether  here  or  back  in  Swansea  or  the  mine 
towns  of  Wales  or  farther  back  in  those  other  mine  camps 
of  Pennsylvania,  to  the  effect  that  "Wedding-bells  will  ring 
so  mer-ri-ly,"  etc. 

I  wonder  if  the  children  of  the  unmarried  war  widows  will 
grow  up  to  join  these  same  groups  when  they  change  as 
regularly  as  they  seem  to,  to  "That  old-fash-ioned  mo-ther 
of  mi-ne!" 


CHAPTER  VI 

MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS  OF  THE  MILD 
MIDLANDS 

Barnsley,  Yorkshire, 
Sunday  night, 
August  29,  1920. 
British  industry  can  certainly  give  us  Americans  some 
pointers  on  the  week-end  holiday.    Of  course,  we  are  gradu- 
ally getting  the  idea  but  certainly  very  few  of  our  steel 
workers,  for  inst^ce,  would  have  the  courage  to  insist 
upon  closing  down  the  open-hearth  furnaces  from  the  last 
tapping  Friday  night  until  a  fresh  charge  Sunday  evening, 
as  appears  practically  universal  here.    One  of  the  steel  men's 
leaders  here  has  said,  too,  that  few  changes  would  be  op- 
posed more  bitterly  than  any  effort  to  eliminate  this  week- 
end lay-off.     About   2,000,000   workers  are  also  said  to 
have  agreements  giving  hohdays  of  three  to  fourteen  days 
with  pay,  according  to  length  of  service. 

Yesterday  afternoon  it  was  an  exhilarating  sight  to  see 
here  a  crowd  of  about  10,000  miners  turn  out  from  all  the 
country  round  to  see  a  football  game  between  a  local  team 
of  miners  and  a  team  of  Sheffield  steel  men.  A  good  game 
it  was,  too,  as  anybody  with  half  an  eye  would  testify.  A 
well-dressed  and  altogether  prosperous-looking  crowd  they 
were.  Such  a  sea  of  neat  caps  and  clean,  fresh  neck 
mufflers  they  made — ^and  such  quick  and  unerring  judges, 
too,  of  good  foot  work  or  head  work  in  the  drooling  of  the 
ball  or  the  guarding  of  the  goal.  Indeed,  for  head  work  the 
ball  sometimes  went  the  length  of  the  field  by  being  butted 
skilfully  from  one  man's  head  to  another's ! 

In  an  open  field  on  the  way  to  the  game,  a  half-dozea 
men  and  boys  were  taking  chances  on  their  pigeons.    One 

205 


206  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

with  his  watch  in  hand  would  wait  very  intently  for  the 
right  second  as  his  friend,  the  starter,  held  the  bird  in  his 
right  hand  far  back  and  ready  for  tossing  high  in  the  air. 
At  his  "Go !"  the  bird  would  be  thrown  perhaps  thirty  feet, 
there  to  get  its  wing,  and,  after  a  circle  or  two,  dart  off  like 
a  flash  for  the  home  cote  in  another  part  of  the  town, 
dodging  the  wires  and  spires  and  chimneys  in  a  splendid 
effort  to  cover  the  distance.  Evidently  the  starting  times 
had  been  agreed  upon  in  advance,  so  that  the  instant  of 
arrival  would  be  noted  and  the  bird's  performance  duly 
recorded  with  a  view  to  a  successful  wager  when  some  more 
important  event  was  arranged.  Apart  from  the  amount  of 
money  won  or  lost,  it  looks  like  an  enjoyable  sport — and 
one  in  which  the  necessary  investment  can  hardly  be  so 
very  high.  For  one  thing,  at  least,  it  can  be  enjoyed  with 
less  wear  and  tear  upon  the  ears  than  the  whippet  racing. 

Perhaps  it  is  partly  because  the  short  stay  here  and  the 
necessity  of  getting  into  touch  with  both  the  mine  owners 
and  the  mine  workers  has  required  the  return  to  the  white 
sheets  and  other  comforts  of  a  fairly  good  hotel — at  any 
rate,  it  is  easy  to  feel  a  long  distance  away  from  Middles- 
brough and  the  other  busy  cities  of  industrial  England.  It 
is  hard  to  imagine  a  more  peaceful  and  comfortable  scene 
than  that  enjoyed  yesterday  when  a  table  acquaintance 
and  I  lolled  on  the  grass  of  the  town  park  and  looked  across 
the  countryside.  Beautiful  meadows  with  their  thick  car- 
pets of  green  dotted  with  lazy  cattle  or  picnicking  famihes 
or  strolling  lovers,  great  patterns  outlined  by  the  pleasant 
hedges  around  squares  of  yellow  grain,  smoke  curling  up 
indolently  from  prosperous  though  simple  cottages,  church 
spires  or  colliery  "tips"  rising  above  the  clumps  of  trees — 
all  make  it  look  like  a  very  happy  combination  of  worthy 
work  and  pleasurable  living,  made  possible,  evidently,  by 
means  of  a  thorough  domestication  and  humanization  of 
the  local  industry,  underground  though  that  is.     Almost 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    207 

anybody  could  imagine  himself  lying  there  in  the  grass  and 
coming  into  sufficient  exaltation  of  spirit — if  not  into  suf- 
ficient energy  of  muscle — for  the  finding  of  the  paper  and  the 
guiding  of  the  lazy  pencil  for  expressing  some  such  senti- 
ment as  Goldsmith's: 

."How  pleasant  then  in  shades  like  these 
To  crown  a  youth  of  labor  with  an  age  of  ease ! " 

But  it  became  very  shortly  evident  that  nature  and  hu- 
man nature  have  to  co-operate  in  order  to  do  the  whole  job 
of  making  people  happy.  My  new-found  acquaintance  was 
moved  by  the  beauty  of  the  scene  to  reveal  his  ideas  about 
his  job  and  his  fellow  workers  on  it. 

"No,  I  can  hardly  say  that  my  education  has  done  much 
for  me,  you  know,  in  my  present  responsibilities  as  the  man- 
ager of  my  father's  business.  Like  every  other  boy  bom  in 
my  class,  I  spent  the  years  between  twelve  and  fourteen  at 
a  public  school — I  suppose  you  Americans  would  call  it 
anything  but  a  public  school,  because  it  is  the  sort  of  school 
attended  only  by  the  sons  of  the  upper  classes — like  the 
chaps  you  read  about,  you  know,  at  Harrow  and  Eton — 
schools  where  the  Iron  Duke  said  the  battle  of  Waterloo 
was  won,  and  all  that  sort  of  thing.  Well,  at  these  public 
schools  the  studying  is  mostly  Latin  and  sUch  things — very 
classical  and  all  that.  The  chap  who  is  remembered  longest 
at  such  places  is  the  one  who  is  best  in  some  line  of  ath- 
letics—  '  Oh,  yes,  I  recall  him !  Made  a  jolly  good  record  in 
cricket  and  at  the  sculls,  didn't  he  ?  Yes,  quite  so,  fine  chap, 
I  remember!'  Of  course,  it  does  give  a  man  a  fine  lot  of 
acquaintances  with  the  others  of  the  same  set  about  the 
country,  and  I  dare  say  that's  worth  while. 

"But  now,  of  course,  my  job  is  to  get  on,  not  with  that 
set  but  with  our  workers,  isn't  it?  Well,  as  a  matter  of 
fact,  I  have  quite  such  a  problem  on  just  now.  Many  of 
the  men  in  our  paper  factory  have  been  with  us  as  much  as 


208  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

fifty  years  and  we've  always  got  on  with  them  quite  all  right. 
But  during  the  war  the  younger  ones  organized  them  all 
into  a  strong  body  for  increasing  and  increasing — always 
increasing — their  weekly  pay.  And  now  it's  simply  im- 
possible to  pay  them  what  they  ask  for  the  small  amount 
of  work  they  give,  you  know — ^and  still  make  any  profit 
out  of  the  business.  So  I've  been  taking  a  little  vacation  to 
think  out  a  plan  and  here  it  is,  if  you  would  care  to  know  it. 
I  shall  accept  an  offer  from  one  of  our  competitors  to  take 
over  the  whole  business  and  so  close  up  the  place  pending 
final  negotiations.  After  the  men  have  spent  a  few  weeks 
wondering  whether  they  stand  a  chance  of  being  continued 
at  their  places,  I  shall  say  to  the  oldest  and  most  thought- 
ful of  them  that  if  I  can  have  their  co-operation — and  their 
services  at  a  reduced  rate,  you  understand? — ^perhaps  I 
can  somehow  or  other  wangle  it  to  get  things  going  again 
for  the  old  crowd,  especially  the  oldest  of  them — the  old- 
est and  most  reasonable,  you  see.  Of  course,  this  sale  I 
speak  of  will  only  be  bogus,  though  I  shall  take  pains,  you 
may  be  sure,  to  give  every  evidence  to  convince  them  that 
it  is  a  quite  bona-fide  affair  and  in  every  way  quite  all 
right,  you  know." 

As  he  set  forth  his  plan  the  words  of  a  very  thoughtful 
Socialist  encountered  there  on  the  smelting  stage  last  week 
in  Middlesbrough  came  back  to  me: 

"Yes,  the  worker  is  much  to  blame.  He  often  goes  too 
far  in  his  demands  and  too  often  he  refuses  to  raise  his 
standard  of  living  and  his  personal  equipment  and  capacity 
— too  often  he  spends  his  additional  earnings  on  drink  in- 
stead of  furniture.  (Personally  I  don't  drink  or  smoke.) 
But  with  all  that,  I  think  we  must  have  a  new  system  of 
society  simply  for  this  one  reason :  Management  and  Capital 
just  canH  he  trusted.  With  the  lure  of  profits,  you  under- 
stand, it  finds  it  too  easy  to  he  dishonest — just  personally  dis- 
honest with  the  worker  and  with  society  in  general," 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    209 

It  is  very  unpleasant  to  have  my  "public-school"  ac- 
quaintance give  such  good  support  to  my  smelting-stage 
friend.  The  only  reply  appears  to  be  that  there  must  al- 
ways be  motive,  whether  financial  or  otherwise,  in  order  to 
get  individual  response  and  energy,  and  that  in  all  times  and 
under  any  system,  men  will  be  tempted  to  "short-circuit" 
their  way  to  the  overquick  and  unrighteous  and  unjust  re- 
ward— ^with  always  the  need,  accordingly,  at  all  times  and 
under  any  system,  of  the  restraint  which  comes  from  the 
moral  soundness  that  is  content  to  rest  its  case  on  those 
"mills  which  grind  right  slowly  yet  exceeding  sure."  A 
clipping  of  a  day  or  two  ago,  by  the  way,  tells  of  the  discon- 
solate stone-breaker  by  one  of  these  wonderful  roads  re- 
plying to  the  minister's  greeting  with:  "Ugh,  they  stones 
be  as  bad  as  the  Ten  Commandments.  Ye  can  keep  on 
breakin'  'em  but  ye  can't  get  rid  of  'em." 

Of  course,  it  is  just  such  ruses  that  enormously  complicate 
the  whole  matter  for  the  employer  who  would  deal  justly. 
In  many  cases  his  men  have  been  trained  by  exactly  such 
dishonest  practices  into  the  settled  conviction  that  honesty 
for  the  employer  is  as  impossible  as  the  eye  of  the  needle 
for  the  rich.  The  strange  thing  is  that  the  employer  who 
is  entirely  persuaded  of  his  own  honesty  fails  too  often  to 
understand  how  any  of  his  employees  can  be  so  hard-hearted 
and  ungrateful  as  to  question  his  motives.  At  the  same 
time,  if  he  himself  runs  into  a  small  number  of  disagree- 
able experiences  with  his  workers,  he  is  quite  as  quick  to 
come  to  certain  definite  and  adamantine  convictions  with 
regard  to  all  employees  everjrwhere  as  is  the  worker  after  a 
few  unpleasant  experiences  with  this  or  that  employer.  In 
either  case,  that  conviction,  built  though  it  ordinarily  is  on 
a  highly  illogical,  because  highly  emotional,  foundation 
constitutes  a  veritable  Chinese  wall  for  preventing  both 
groups  from  having  a  fair  go  at  each  other  and  each  other's 
confidence. 


210  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Yesterday's  travelling,  by  the  way,  demonstrated  in  a 
new  manner  how  this  dijSiculty  of  getting  on  with  each 
other  is  connected  with  the  desire  of  every  one  of  us  to  keep 
tight  hold,  throughout  every  waking  moment  of  the  day,  of 
the  feeUng  that  we  are  holding  our  own  and  getting  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  respect  and  recognition  from  the  other 
fellow.  After  I  had  been  told  for  the  fourth  or  fifth  time 
to  change  cars  in  order  to  make  the  trip  here,  I  came  close 
to  a  httle  "run-in"  with  one  of  the  station  guards.  He  ap- 
pe^red  to  me  at  the  time  extremely  officious.  Now  that 
IVv  cooled  off,  it  looks  as  though  the  chief  trouble  was 
that  a  stranger  is  extremely  likely  to  feel  touchy  and  easily 
aggrieved  in  a  strange  land.  In  the  nature  of  the  case  his 
ignorance  leads  him  to  a  sense  of  helplessness  if  not  of 
actual  shame  for  his  childish  ignorance  in  finding  his  way 
through  a  new  country.  The  result  in  lost  "face"  is  much 
the  same  as  if  he  had  lost  his  self-confidence  and  so  in- 
creased his  temper  and  touchiness  by  reason  of  fatigue  in- 
stead of  by  inexperience — ^with  the  chances  good  for  a  few 
explosions  of  irritability  which  affect  international  attitudes 
and  relationships  instead  of  the  more  usual  jars  within  the 
circle  of  the  factory  or  the  family. 

At  a  number  of  stations  men  and  boys,  just  out  from  the 
collieries  for  the  Saturday-afternoon  hohday,  got  on  with 
their  grimy  clothes  and  black  faces  for  riding  up  to  their 
homes  in  the  next  town  or  so.  Several  of  the  boys  are  very 
sore  that  the  London  papers  are  making  so  much  fuss  about 
their  votes,  as  though  they  were  certain  to  favor  a  strike 
in  order  to  get  a  bit  of  excitement  even  though  that  means 
pushing  the  country  toward  the  brink  of  disaster.  Both 
their  own  thirst  for  the  vacation  which  the  strike  might 
give  and  also  the  reported  carelessness  of  the  union  officials 
in  giving  out  and  collecting  the  votes  are  being  grossly  ex- 
aggerated, they  are  certain,  by  the  daily  press. 

"  'Tis  for  our  fawthers  to  do  the  decidin',"  said  one  of  the 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    211 

blackest  of  them.  "  So  I  rolled  mine  up.  'Twon't  be  counted 
one  way  or  another." 

The  same  type  of  boy — ^many  of  them  scarcely  turned 
fourteen  and  inclined,  apparently,  to  be  small  for  their 
years — ^was  in  the  crowd  last  night  at  what  seemed  a  com- 
bination of  carnival,  fair,  and  market.  With  their  girl 
friends,  still  wearing  their  hair  down  their  backs,  they  made 
part  of  the  great  crowds  that  patronized  the  swing  or  the 
merry-go-roimd  with  its  labored  but  melodious  grinding  of 
the  popular  tunes,  or  else  stood  up  to  the  counters  with  the 
flaring  torches  to  eat  with  the  help  of  fingers  and  much 
vinegar  from  the  great  piles  of  cold  pickled  tripe,  pigs* 
knuckles  and  toes,  or  cows'  heels.  The  girls  were  young — 
surprisingly  young — ^and  especially  when  the  swings  rose 
highest  or  the  merry-go-round  went  merriest,  were  suf- 
ficiently prodigal  and  friendly  with  their  young  waists  and 
arms.  In  a  number  of  cases,  it  must  be  said  with  regret,  the 
boys  were  staggering,  particularly  at  ten  after  the  pubs 
were  closed  and  the  lights  began  to  dim  and  the  crowds, 
with  their  wooden-sded  mine  shoes  and  many  a  cheery 
"Good  neet!"  (good  night)  began  to  thin  out — leaving 
much  depleted  the  piles  of  cookies,  candies,  vegetables, 
shoes,  stockings,  etc.,  etc. 

While  the  crowd  was  at  its  height  a  sightseer  was  bound 
to  follow  in  the  direction  of  a  street  where,  among  a  number 
of  pubs,  the  sign  of  ''Musical  Tavern"  supported  the  im- 
pression of  the  ears  that  "a  good  time  was  being  had  by 
one  and  all."  It  certainly  is  a  popular  place,  in  spite 
of  the  fact  that  the  Muse  suffers  from  much  the  same 
troubles  that  afflict  the  speechmaker  on  Bath  Street  in 
Glasgow. 

Over  by  the  piano  a  perfectly  sober  and  spotlessly  neck- 
mufflered  miner  with  a  shining  face — except  for  that  thin, 
telltale  ring  of  unreachable  grime  close  to  the  inmost  cir- 
cle of  his  eyes — ^waits  as  the  woman  accompanist  gives  the 


212  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

chord  and  the  voice  of  a  friend  calls:  "Ple-a-se,  gentlemen, 
ple-a-se!" 

''I  of-ten  think  of  Mo-ther." 

So  far  so  good.  The  miner  evidently  has  a  good  voice 
and  the  prospect  looks  good  that  most  of  his  audience  will 
soon  be  weeping,  especially  those  already  helped  farthest 
on  toward  the  stage  of  tears  by  the  brimming  glasses  set 
down  hurriedly  before  them  by  the  overworked  and  almost 
breathless,  sweet-faced — also  pink  shirt-waisted  and  red- 
beribboned — young  barmaid.  But  by  this  time  the  inter- 
est of  one  whose  sentiment  has  already  got  the  better  of 
him  is  on  the  job  of  helping  the  singer: 

"Thank  ye,  gents,  one  and  all!"  he  roars  out  to  every- 
body. 

It's  all  off !  The  miner  has  to  start  over  again — just  at 
the  instant,  unluckily,  that  his  friend — his  sober  friend — im- 
plores with  another:  "Please!    Order,  gents,  order!" 

"I  of-ten  think  of  Mo-ther " 

"I  thank  ye,  gents.  One  and  all,  I  thank  ye !"  roars  the 
drunken  listener. 

Whereupon  friend,  singer,  pianist,  and  drunken  admirer 
all  go  ahead  without  paying  any  attention  to  each  other — 
and  all  the  rest  of  the  crowd  gives  itself  to  its  glasses  while 
the  big  red-faced  and  red-mufflered  fellow  with  the  leather 
leggings — he  was  selling  sheep  there  in  the  main  square  in 
the  afternoon — stops  the  barmaid  long  enough  to  whisper 
some  of  those  confidential  importances  of  which  a  drunken 
man  seems  always  full,  and  the  black-haired  old  woman  with 
the  few  big  teeth  and  the  many  gums  and  stumps — ^also  the 
crumpled-up  millinery  of  unfortunate  but  still  struggling 
respectabiUty — laughs  her  pitiful  and  maudhn  laugh  till  her 
tears  are  running  down  the  back  of  her  more  sober  gentle- 
man escort  against  whom  she  leans. 

After  so  much  noise  and  excitement  this  morning  was  a 
long  expanse  of  empty-streeted  silence  and  serenity.    To- 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    213 

night  it  has  been  fairly  active  again  after  the  early  closing 
of  the  Sunday  evening  session  of  the  pubs,  with  fairly  numer- 
ous drunken  boys  and  men  among  the  crowds — also,  for 
some  reason,  a  surprising  number  of  young  girls  with  lots 
of  hair  braids  on  their  shoulders  and  a  good  deal  of  boy  in 
their  eyes.  A  long  walk  took  me  out  into  the  lanes  by  the 
hedges  where  the  moon  and  the  pleasant  meadows  appeared 
to  be  exercising  a  very  potent  influence  upon  all  who  had 
been  lucky  enough  to  plan  a  meeting,  making  it,  on  the 
whole,  no  place  for  a  soUtary  and  lonesome  husband. 

America  seems  to  afford  no  opportunity  for  rendezvous 
quite  comparable  to  this  combination  of  meadow  and  moon, 
lane  and  hedge,  darkness  and  limitless  sky.  It  would  be 
interesting  to  know  whether  this  has  anything  to  do  with  a 
certain  realism  in  the  writings  of  the  modem  school  of 
English  novelists  which  we  Americans  find  unexpected. 

Here's  hoping  that  to-morrow  sees  some  progress  toward 
getting  at  least  some  of  the  local  opinion  on  the  matter  of 
coal;  it  is  certainly  being  taken  by  the  country  in  general 
as  a  burning  subject  indeed.  At  any  rate,  getting  the  cars 
to  the  mines  so  as  to  permit  regular  operation  appears  to 
be  no  problem  here,  because,  doubtless,  of  the  distribution 
of  the  mines  and  the  consequent  shortness  of  the  haul  in  a 
small  country.  A  few  days  ago  a  Welsh  colliery  was  men- 
tioned as  laying  off  2,000  men  on  account  of  lack  of  "trucks." 
American  papers  could  hardly  print  anything  else  if  they 
were  to  record  the  same  misfortune  in  our  mines  from  day 
to  day. 

Monday,  August  30th, 
Bamsley,  Yorkshire. 
It's  amazing  the  way  the  day  has  supported  exactly  the 
impression  given  Saturday  and  Sunday  by  the  hillside's  re- 
assuring combination  of  hedgerow,  church  spire,  coal  tipple, 
and  cottage  chimney.  Strangely  enough,  the  only  jarring 
notes  came  from  the  pessimism  of  some  of  the  owners.   One 


214  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

of  these  represents  several  generations  of  mine  managers. 
He  thinks  that  his  industry  has  aheady  gone  over  onto  the 
basis  of  practical  nationaUzation — with  the  chances  against 
its  ever  coming  back. 

"I'd  be  jolly  glad  to  sell  all  our  properties  to  the  govern- 
ment to-morrow.  Then  I'd  'hop  it'  off  to  the  Argentine 
or  some  place  where  governments  give  men  a  freer  and  hap- 
pier hand." 

Another — more  in  the  nature  of  a  self-made  man — is 
equally  certain  that  there  is  no  way  out  of  the  country's 
coal  troubles  except  to  go  through  a  lot  of  panicky  times 
which  can  be  counted  on  finally  to  result  in  lower  wages  and 
a  more  humble  worker — ^much  the  same  thing  that  is  being 
said,  doubtless,  at  this  same  moment,  by  many  of  those 
American  employers  who  are  called  "hard  boiled." 

Still  another  of  much  the  same  group  believes  that  most 
of  the  fault  lies  upon  the  employer's  side,  even  though 
that  is  the  side  with  which  he  is  actively  connected. 

"Most  of  the  bickerings  back  and  forth  are  for  poUtical 
purposes — whether  by  labor  or  capital.  In  it  all  the  gov- 
ernment simply  watches  its  chance  to  turn  every  possible 
eventuality  into  profit  and  prestige  for  itself.  That  is  its 
entire  poUcy — that  and  raising  the  prices  of  coal  and  every- 
thing else.  For  instance,  take  this  telephone.  It's  awful! 
One  'phone  and  one  branch  cost  fifty  pounds  the  year. 
Two  regular  'phones  cost  one  hundred  pounds — ^here  in  this 
small  place!  How  can  progressive  industry  stand  such 
strains  as  that?" 

All  of  these  seem  to  agree  that  the  laboring  man  all  but 
resists  opportunities  to  put  himself  into  a  better  group  or 
to  raise  the  standard  of  his  hving.  One  man  told  of  a  miner 
who  found  himself  having  to  pay  what  he  considered  very 
large  taxes  because  his  earnings — for  the  first  time  in  his 
life — ^were  running  pretty  well  over  fifty  pounds  a  quarter. 
As  a  result  he  definitely  decided  to  earn  less.    So  some 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    215 

weeks  now  he  works  only  three  days.  ''You  see,  he's  not 
used  to  paying  taxes  and  feels  that  it  is  just  plain  robbery. 
The  only  way  to  stop  it  is  to  earn  less !" 

"The  Urban  Council  here  pays  the  fare  of  boys  back  and 
forth  from  the  neighboring  towns  for  taking  certain  tech- 
nical courses  in  the  night  schools  here.  The  council  has 
been  anxious  to  get  as  many  boys  to  make  use  of  this  ad- 
vantage as  possible.  But  after  all  we've  done  the  boys 
taking  it  in  the  district  number  only  nine!" 

The  surprise  of  the  day  was  to  get  such  good  and  hopeful 
words  from  the  workers.  "The  best  employers  in  the  'ole 
of  merry  England,  we  got  right  'ere  in  the  district,"  was 
the  way  an  old  and  retired  employee  put  it  as  he  nursed  a 
rheumatic  leg  in  the  kitchen  where  I  found  him.  The  house 
certainly  looks  thrifty  and  comfortable  with  its  nice  httle 
pantry  garden  in  the  back  and  an  "allotment,"  or  war 
garden  plot,  as  we  would  call  it,  across  the  alley  in  the  rear. 

"Yes,  me  father  offered  me  more  education  and,  hke  the 
foohsh  one  I  was,  I  said  no.  Well,  ye  see,  the  crowd — that 
is  all  me  boy&  and  pals  here  in  the  place — ^was  going  regular 
underground  when  they  was  twelve.  Of  course,  we  all  be- 
gun at  trappin' — that's  mindin'  the  mine  doors,  y'  under- 
stand? A  twelvepence  it  was  we  got,  the  day  of  twelve 
hours.  Never  did  we  see  the  Ught  until  Sunday — that 
early  we  'ad  to  be  in  and  that  late  out,  the  six  days  of  the 
week.  I'll  never  forget  me  first  pay.  They  gave  me  two 
shillin'.  Every  step  o'  the  way  'ome  I  ran  to  show  it  to  me 
mother!  Of  course,  in  them  days,  a  pound  of  sugar  you 
could  get  for  three  ha'pence  and  for  meat,  well,  for  a  prime 
and  special  cut,  y'  understand,  'twould  be  sixpence  the 
pound.  Of  course,  too,  the  seams  'ere  are  good — three  feet 
five  and  four  feet  six.  .  .  . 

"Since  twenty  years  never  a  drop  'as  passed  me  lips. 
Before  that  'twas  twenty  or  thirty  shillin'  the  week  that 
floated  down  me  throat  in  the  beer  an'  all.    'Tis  hkely  for 


216'  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

that  that  I  don't  'ave  ter  work  now — ^with  eleven  children 
to  carry  on  fer  me,  though  for  ten  year  me  wife  would  be 
no  good — the  rheumatism  'as  'er  worse  'n  me." 

Among  the  most  thoughtful  minded  women  seen  in  Eng- 
land I  think  I  would  place  the  wife  of  a  union  official  whose 
view-point  was,  perhaps,  in  a  way,  more  representative  of 
the  district's  workers  than  if  her  husband  had  been  speak- 
ing. She  was  in  school  until  she  was  eighteen  and  has  both 
a  hvely  and  an  intelligent  interest  in  everything  going  on  in 
the  country  as  well  as  in  the  district.  Both  her  father  and 
her  husband  have  been  or  are  union  officials. 

"No,  I'd  say  the  Bolshies  are  here  but  they  have  no  fol- 
lowing. The  reason  is  that  our  employers  have  lived  here 
all  their  lives  and  their  fathers  before  them.  Every  one 
trusts  them.  And  you  can  see  the  kind  of  houses  the  min- 
ers five  in,  with  rent  in  the  town  from  six  and  sixpence  up 
to  nine  shillings  for  the  newest,  also  for  the  several  hundred 
soon  to  be  built.  Besides  that  there  is  free  coal  from  the 
mine — eight  or  ten  tons  of  it,  I  suppose,  in  the  year. 

"Even  the  boys  here  are  voting  against  this  strike, 
partly  because  they  think  they're  getting  along  pretty  well 
and  partly  because  the  Miners'  Federation  let  them  down 
last  year  when  this  district  thought  it  had  a  grievance  and 
went  out  by  itself.  My  husband  gives  out  the  ballots 
most  carefully,  I  assure  you.  The  results  are  carefully 
guarded  in  every  way.  How  it  is  in  other  districts  of  the 
country,  I  don't  know.  .  .  .  The  government  seems  to  me 
just  stupid.  My  cousin  is  trying  to  go  out  to  join  her 
brothers  and  sisters  in  the  colonies.  With  all  the  overplus 
of  workers  and  especially  of  women  here,  you'd  think  the 
government  would  help,  but  only  last  week  she  almost  de- 
cided to  give  it  up — that  troublesome  they  were  at  the 
Emigration  Office  and  all." 

Unfortunately  Vice-President  Smith  of  the  Miners' 
Federation  is  not  at  his  home  here.    One  of  his  assistants, 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    217 

however,  is  apparently  to  be  counted  on  for  straight  think- 
ing— ^and  kindly. 

"It's  the  distrust  on  both  sides,  so  we  all  believe,  that 
makes  any  further  efforts  to  work  out  the  present  situation 
on  any  modification  of  the  present  system  impossible. 
Masters  and  men  have  come  to  such  a  point  of  suspicion 
and  misunderstanding  that  the  mining  industry  is  at  a  dead 
standstill.  The  only  way  out  is  nationaUzation — an  en- 
tirely new  stand  all  the  way  'round.  It's  the  only  way  to 
save  the  industry.  Perhaps  nationaUzed  mines  have  not 
succeeded  very  well  in  other  countries  where  they  have  been 
tried,  but  this  will  be  the  first  time  that  nationalization  will 
come  as  a  direct  result  of  the  workers  in  the  industry  want- 
ing it  themselves.  That  will  make  a  great  difference.  For 
one  thing  that  will  allow  the  better  technical  equipment 
which  the  mines  must  have  if  the  men  are  to  keep  up  pro- 
duction. Production  per  man  has  been  decreasing  as  the 
operators  claim,  but  you  see  that's  because  most  of  our 
British  mines  are  old  and  the  equipment  and  engineering 
have  got  farther  and  farther  out  of  date.  It's  not  strange, 
either,  that  the  owners  hesitate  to  spend  the  necessary  mil- 
lions for  improving  them,  with  the  threat  of  nationaliza- 
tion over  their  heads.  And,  you  know,  we  miners  our- 
selves don't  agree  as  to  whether  the  owners  should  be  paid 
well  or  even  at  all  for  their  properties. 

"The  Joint  Council  plan  proposed  by  the  government — 
you  know,  where  owners  and  miners  would  have  represen- 
tation on  a  mine  committee  and  then  on  district  and  na- 
tional committees  and  councils — has  not  worked  well  in 
experience.  Partly  because,  I'm  bound  to  say,  the  operator 
is  amazingly  short-sighted  in  so  many  cases.  One  committee 
here  in  the  district,  for  instance,  assessed  fines  on  all  the 
absentees — all  the  men  who  stayed  away*  from  work.  The 
result  was  to  lessen  it  to  a  point  quite  amazing.  But  one 
day  the  fine  was  assessed  on  the  company  for  some  of  the 


218  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

oflficials.  My  word ! — what  did  they  do  but  refuse  to  pay 
it!  A  fine,  mind  you,  of  ten  shillings!  Of  course,  that 
broke  up  the  whole  thing.  I  dare  say  the  company  lost 
hundreds  and  hundreds  of  pounds  from  the  absences  that 
began  the  next  morning  after  the  plan — ^and  with  it  the 
committee — smashed. 

"A  higher  standard  of  living  for  our  miners — that  is  the 
job  to  which  the  whole  country  and  especially  the  union 
officials  should  give  themselves.  Always  it  is  higher  wages — 
higher  wages:  that  is  the  men's  demand.  But  unless  the 
workers  themselves  get  to  Uving  better,  either  production 
falls  because  of  the  lessened  amount  of  work  or  else  the  men 
give  themselves  to  more  gambling  and  drinking.  Of  course, 
the  men  themselves  must  want  this  higher  standard  of 
living  or  all  the  efforts  of  their  leaders  or  their  fellows  are 
in  vain.  Just  how  that  is  to  be  accompHshed  it  is  hard  to 
say.  But  I  do  know  that  the  leaders  must  resist  somehow 
the  pressure  always  brought  on  them  for  higher  wages  with- 
out respect  to  larger  production  or  to  the  enjoyment  of 
better  and  wider  Uving." 

This  last  seems  to  me  very  much  the  crux  of  the  whole  sit- 
uation. Certainly,  the  district  proves  the  influence  of  such  a 
higher  standard  of  Uving  upon  the  men's  value  both  as 
workers  and  as  citizens.  That,  in  turn,  has  much  to  do, 
doubtless,  with  the  feeling  of  the  local  district  leaders,  noted 
as  they  are  throughout  the  country  for  their  reasonable- 
ness. It  is  impossible  to  beUeve  that  such  testimonies  as 
to-day's  could  have  been  encountered  among  workers  in, 
for  instance,  the  Scotch  coal  area.  There,  in  fact,  right  in 
the  country  where  Robert  SmilUe  was  born  and  raised, 
28,000  famiUes  out  of  a  total  of  35,000  are  said  stiU  to  be 
Uving  in  one-room  houses.  In  that  case,  it  is  quite  con- 
ceivable that  "Bob"  grew  up  in  conditions  which  made  it 
extremely  easy  to  set  fire  to  the  tinder  of  his  boyish  pur- 
poses and  idealisms  by  the  stories  that  might  easily  have 


MIDST  THE  MlNiEHS  AND  MACHINISTS    21d 

been  told  him  by  his  father  and  grandfather.  Such  stories 
would  doubtless  have  reflected  such  conditions  as  are  de- 
scribed in  a  book  given  me  by  one  of  the  Welsh  mine  owners 
and  operators  as  representing  a  fair  and,  on  the  whole,  con- 
servative statement  of  the  British  coal  problem.*  As  there 
related,  a  parliamentary  commission  of  long  ago  discov- 
ered that  in  1842  the  mines  were  quite  innocent  of  anything 
like  the  ventilation  the  mines  know  to-day.  The  men  were 
usually,  therefore,  entirely  naked,  oftentimes  lying  for  the 
long  twelve  and  fourteen  hour  day  on  their  sides,  getting 
down  the  coal  out  of  an  eighteen-inch  seam !  When  women 
were  not  employed  the  business  of  dragging  the  tubs  of 
coal  from  the  workers  out  to  the  shaft  was  often  done  by 
girls  of  nine  or  ten  and  eleven,  wearing  nothing  but  a  shirt 
and  dragging  the  "coals"  by  means  of  a  heavy  chain  which 
ran  from  the  iron  belt  around  their  waists  out  between  their 
legs  as  they  crawled  on  hands  and  knees  through  passage- 
ways of  only  twenty  or  thirty  inches'  height  If 

Some  of  the  children  were  found  by  the  commission  to 
be  working  ankle-deep  in  water  or  crawling  through  pools. 
Once  a  little  girl  of  seven  years  of  age,  who  was  supposed 
to  be  watching  an  air  gate  upon  the  proper  working  of  which 
the  safety  of  all  in  the  mine  might  have  depended,  was  found 
asleep,  her  lamp  having  gone  out  and  the  rats  having  eaten 
her  meal  of  bread  and  cheese. 

In  addition  there  seems  to  have  been  quite  general  in 
certain  areas  the  practice  of  apprenticing — ^by  which  paupers 
or  orphans  were  put  completely  in  the  power  of  the  ''butty" 
— doubtless  the  original  "buddy" — ^who  was  a  contractor 

*  "The  British  Coal  Industry,"  by  Gilbert  Stone.  E.  P.  Dutton  &  Co., 
New  York.    J.  M.  Dent  &  Sons,  Ltd.,  London  and  Toronto. 

t  "Thus  Mary  Bamett,  aged  14:  'I  work  always  without  stockings,  or 
shoes,  or  trousers;  I  wear  nothing  but  my  shirt;  I  have  to  go  up  to  the  head- 
ings (t.  e.,  coal-face)  with  the  men;  they  are  all  naked  there;  I  am  got  well  used 
to  that,  and  don't  care  much  about  it;  I  was  afraid  at  first  and  did  not  like 
it.'"    (Pp.  23  and  24.) 

/ 


220  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

for  the  owner  and,  as  such,  was  m  practical  control  of  the 
working  force.  Between  eight  and  nine  years  these  boys 
were  sent  on  trial  from  the  workhouses  or  poor-farms  and, 
if  satisfactory,  were  bound  as  apprentices  for  twelve  years — 
in  spite  of  the  fact  that  there  is  Httle  in  the  coal-mines  to 
learn  requiring  more  than  a  few  months  of  practice  and  ex- 
perience. Naturally  the  treatment  which  these  boys  re- 
ceived at  the  hands  of  some  of  their  ''butties"  makes  most 
unpleasant  reading.  They  were  given  no  wages  of  any  kind 
and  were  simply  kept  in  clothes  and  food  by  their  masters, 
besides  being  given  the  most  difficult  and  dangerous  of 
tasks. 

It  is  easy  to  believe  that  part  of  Britain's  troubles  at  this 
moment  are  the  heritage  of  such  a  black  and  dreadful  his- 
tory. What  is  most  important  to  observe,  however,  is  that 
this  history  evidently  "carries  on"  to-day  for  the  most 
part,  only  where  the  blackness  itself  still  continues  in  the 
shape  of  bad  Uving  conditions  or  of  other  unhappinesses  years 
and  years  after  the  joint  efforts  of  ParUament,  employers, 
and  unionized  employees  have  succeeded  in  putting  an  end  to 
such  miseries  in  the  working  conditions  underground  and  in 
denying  such  labor  to  women  and  children.  Doubtless  the 
mines  in  this  district  were,  in  the  old  days,  quite  as  bad  as 
in  Scotland,  yet  it  is  Scotland's  one-room  houses  of  to-day 
that  have  given  the  movement  much  of  its  fervor  in  the 
person  of  the  crusader,  rather  than  the  usual  type  of  local 
leader,  Bob  SmiUie.  J.  H.  Thomas  is  certainly  right  in 
feeling  that  the  shortage  of  houses  in  the  country  generally 
is  a  contributing  factor  to  "  inamoraUty,  vice,  Bolshevism, 
and  the  spread  of  social  unrest." 

More  and  more  the  criticism  of  the  papers  and  also  of 
the  government  officials  is  directing  itself  against  the  de- 
cision by  the  miners  that  such-and-such  a  price  must  be 
charged  by  the  government  and  such-and-such  limits  must 
be  set  upon  the  government's  profits,  even  though  these  are 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    221 

in  lieu  of  the  ordinary  taxes  paid  by  the  other  individually 
controlled  industries.  It  seems  highly  questionable  that  the 
miners  can  stand  out  for  the  right  of  the  workers  in  any  in- 
dustry to  determine  what  taxes  that  industry  will  pay  as 
well  as  what  prices  and  wages  it  will  estabhsh.  Certainly 
the  whole  country  seems  pretty  generally  backing  the  gov- 
ernment on  its  insistence  that  at  least  the  matter  of  taxa- 
tion is  something  which  the  government  itself  must  be  free 
to  determine. 

It's  a  shame  not  to  have  time  to  become  a  worker  here 
and  get  the  feel  of  the  underground — and  the  extraordinary 
confidence  and  heart-to-heart  conversation  favored  by  the 
close  contact  of  the  filling  of  the  tram  there  at  the  face. 
But,  with  the  way  the  conversations  with  the  workers  on 
the  streets  and  in  the  pubs  have  supported  the  words  of  the 
leaders  and  the  others,  it  seems  better  to  start  for  the  steel 
mills  of  Sheffield. 

It  would  be  enjoyable  also  to  "stick  around"  longer  if 
only  to  get  closer  to  the  Yorkshire  dialect,  which  must  be 
behind  the  "good  neet!"  (good  night)  or  "giname  a  leet" 
(fight)  so  frequently  heard  on  the  streets.  One  householder 
tells  of  the  perplexity  produced  in  the  family  by  a  York- 
shire maid  who  came  to  ask  :  "Maunie  mak  shet?"  After 
some  moments,  and  the  calfing  in  of  an  older  inhabitant,  it 
was  discovered  that  she  was  asking:  "Shall  I  make  shut?" 
that  is,  close  the  doors  and  windows  for  the  night. 

fhe  local  paper  adds  the  country's  usual  jab  at  govern- 
ment service  by  telfing  of  the  man  who  boasted  of  "follow- 
ing pubfic  work"  and  being  asked  if  he  ever  overtook  it. 

Sheffield, 

Thursday,  September  2nd. 
"Full  up!"  was  certainly  the  word  here  a  night  or  two 
ago  when  the  train  got  in  from  Barnsley  at  what  looked  like 
a  sufficiently  early  hour  for  finding  a  bed,  but  wasn't.    The 


222  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

daily  need  of  making  the  circuit  of  the  gates  in  search  of  a 
job,  and  the  clothes  that  go  with  that  necessity,  made  im- 
possible any  of  the  first  or  second  class  hotels.  The  crowded 
condition  of  the  town  just  about  made  everything  else 
equally  closed.  In  spite  of  the  help  of  numerous  ''bobbies," 
several  advertisements,  a  lot  of  carfare,  and  an  immense 
amount  of  leg  work,  all  efforts  brought  no  words  more  con- 
soling than  the  ubiquitous  ''Full  up!  Not  a  bed  in  the 
'ouse!"  with  occasionally  an  additional  "Sorry."  Finally, 
after  nearly  twenty  askings,  it  was  just  sheer  goodness  of 
heart  that  made  a  landlord  of  a  conunercial  house,  with  the 
help  of  his  two  intelligent-faced  and  kindly  dispositioned 
daughters,  give  me  a  pair  of  comforts  on  an  antique  lounge 
in  a  third-story  hallway — a  very  open-faced  bedroom  it 
was  as  the  maids  passed  along  to  their  early  duties.  Cer- 
tainly few  of  their  guests  ever  made  a  larger  return  in  grati- 
tude. The  question  is  whether  I  can  prevail  upon  them  to 
allow  so  tough-looking  a  customer  to  hang  around  a  place 
which,  though  it  is  far  from  first  class,  is  still  miles  above  the 
status  of  a  man  so  evidently  in  need  of  a  job. 

A  day  here,  however,  certainly  makes  it  look  as  though 
the  factories  were  just  as  crowded  as  the  boarding-houses 
and  rooming-places.  "Naught  doin'  but  muckin'  abaht." 
That  seems  to  be  the  situation  of  the  men  here  out  of  jobs. 
"Awnd  there's  'undreds  'ere  that's  bein'  turned  off  now, 
too." 

Over  in  a  very  slununy  part  of  town — the  weekly  rent 
they  said  was  "six  bob  and  a  tanner,"  that  is,  six  and  six- 
pence— the  front  rooms,  as  seen  through  the  open  door 
and  over  the  well-soapstoned  threshold,  were  crowded  with 
a  red-covered  table,  a  fireplace  with  a  teapot  sitting  near  the 
coals,  a  bureau  chest  of  drawers,  sideboard, — ^wax,  flowers 
under  a  large  glass,  a  few  chromos,  not  to  mention  the  cat, 
with  perhaps  a  dog  also,  before  the  fireplace.  For  ten  shil- 
lings, they  said,  a  fellow  could  get  a  regular  house  with  a 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    223 

bath.  The  factories  near  by  represent  a  very  old  school 
of  both  construction  and  production.  From  the  glimpses 
through  grimy  windows  permitted  to  a  jobless  man,  the 
dim  lights,  the  smoke,  and  the  flaming  metal  being  cut  or 
pounded  into  such  things  as  knives  or  hammers  and  axe- 
heads,  make  a  pretty  unattractive  picture.  Indeed,  the  al- 
ways depressing  effects  of  the  refusals  of  the  job,  coupled 
with  the  unattractive  interiors  and  the  cold  rain  or  fog  and 
mud  of  the  district,  put  my  state  of  mind  away  down  below 
anything  like  par.  Once  I  tried  to  pass  a  brick  wall  that 
made  the  side  of  a  furnace  in  one  of  the  factories,  I  found 
myself  backed  up  against  its  splendid  warmth  taking  note  of 
its  surrounding  geography  with  the  thought  in  my  mind: 
"  'Twill  be  fine  to  come  back  here  if  the  winter  finds  me  still 
out  of  work !"  So  far  can  a  fellow's  mood  run  the  current 
of  his  thinking  and  planning  out  of  its  normal  channel !  A 
few  minutes  later  it  was  a  huge  pleasure  to  notice  that  the 
working  men  were  accepting  my  plea  for  a  job  as  a  man  who 
"  'ad  just  coom  down  from  up  Middlesbrough  way." 

*'  'E  says  'e  wants  a  general  laborer's  job,"  my  friend  ex- 
plained to  another,  adding  that  "as  a  fellow  worker  'ere 
from  Middlesbrough  we  'ad  ought  to  do  all  we  can.  Still 
there's  almost  no  bloo-ody  chawnce.  They're  stoppin'  them 
off  now  by  'undreds,  with  'undreds  more  expecting  to  be 
stopped  this  week — with  the  engineers'  strike  an'  all.  'Im 
as  were  'ere  just  lawst  night  were  sayin'  thot  a  mon  with  no 
job  to-day  is  only  like  wot  most  of  the  world  will  be  soon 
enough." 

As  we  had  a  glass  together  in  the  pub,  I  found  it  too  late 
to  explain  that  I  was  an  American — for  under  the  belief 
that  I  was  British  they  had  made  their  comment  that 
"America,  I  see  by  the  papers,  is  after  rulin'  the  seas  noow 
and  will  be  wantin'  every  bloo-ody  ha'penny  from  the  war." 
What  was  worse,  however,  was  that  being  thought  a  Brit- 
isher made  impossible,  without  danger  of  disagreeable  com- 


224  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

plications,  the  asking  of  any  questions  about  the  general 
situation.  So  I  find  it  best  to  be  taken  for  the  American  I 
am — the  American  worker  in  hard  luck. 

The  best  of  their  suggestions  was  to  try  the  gas-works. 
There,  unfortunately,  I  found  later,  they  had  just  taken  on 
eight  laborers  that  afternoon — at  three  pounds  ten  or 
twelve  the  week,  with  board  for  laborers  costing  generally 
twenty-five  shillings.  Luckily,  I  was  able  to  answer  that  I 
was  used  to  shovelling  and  that  I  thought  I  could  stand  the 
loading  of  "coal  and  coke  all  day,  for,  after  all,"  as  I  added, 
"coal  is  fairish-Ught  after  the  iron  stone  I'd  been  used  to 
handlin'  in  America."  On  the  way  out  after  my  discourag- 
ing talk  with  the  gaffer,  a  worker  was  glad  to  show  with 
considerable  pride  how  the  gas  is  made,  though  he  was  sad 
to  think  that  "more  and  more  by  machinery  it  is,  and  that 
means  stoppin'  off  more  men." 

"So  easy  it  is  now  to  turn  on  a  leet  'ere  in  the  'omes  of 
Sheffield  and  give  never  a  thought  'ow  it  must  be  made  and 
washed  and  scrubbed  and  stored  and  all — never  a  thought 
where  it  cooms  from  or  'ow.  Seven  milHon  cubic  feet  there 
is  over  there  in  that  tank.  As  ye  can  see,  something  is 
bound  to  'appen  in  Sheffield  w'en  we  men  'ere  stops  off.  .  .  . 
Wull,  try  to-morrer — a  good  place  it  is  for  ye  all  winter — 
awnd  warm!" 

Mighty  little  pleasure  a  couple  of  boys  in  the  parcel-room 
at  the  station  seemed  to  be  getting  out  of  their  jobs,  partly 
because  of  the  misbehavings  of  the  pubHc. 

"Everybody  'grouses'  because  we  charge  a  thruppence 
for  a  package  now  instead  of  a  tuppence,  when  everything 
else  in  the  'ole  country  'as  gone  up  150  per  cent  instead  of 
our  50  per  cent.  'Tis  the  red  tape  of  government  that  for- 
bids us  'elpin'  people  on  the  platforms  hke  we  used  to  do. 
The  rules  forbid  it  now,  because,  you  see,  it  lessens  the 
number  of  jobs.  From  what  I  can  see  'ere  we  got  a  full  30 
per  cent  more  men  than  we  need  around  the  station.    Of 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    225 

course,  that  gives  everybody  easy  work  but  it  raises  the 
taxes — ^and  there  you  are ! " 

Even  in  such  a  disreputable  pub  as  I  loafed  in  last  night, 
the  conversation  seems  to  be  mainly  that  of  men  who  can 
count  upon  steady  work  and  fairish  homes.  Certainly  the 
bartender  felt  his  responsibility  for  making  the  place  a  sort 
of  conversational  salon  rather  than  a  mere  place  for  drinking. 

"Wat  the  bloo-ody  'ell  is  this  Irish  mayor  a-starvin'  o' 
'imself  for?  I'd  like  to  see  'em  set  grapes  and  such  afoor 
me !  Besides,  there's  no  sense  to  it.  CarUsle,  'e  goes  in  fer 
'ard  labor  and  then  'e  gets  out  and  talks  in  the  streets  and 
gets  in  again,  but  'e  doesn't  commit  suicide  and  'e  does  'elp 
'is  cause." 

"I  see  a  judge  says  if  the  plaintiff  'as  the  gout,  then  'e's 
rich  enough  to  pay  'is  rates,"  says  another. 

"A  gaffer  'as  naught  in  a  union  meetin',"  avers  another 
when  the  everlasting  question  arises  as  to  the  probabihty 
of  the  machinists'  strike.  "Goin'  back  like  as  not,  'e  would, 
to  tell  'is  mawsters.  Bloo-ody  unreasonable  they  are,  these 
mechanic  chaps  and  these  bloo-ody  miners  the  sime." 

"0'  course  there  been  no  anti-rent  strike  doon  this  wye. 
W'y  should  there  be?  Rent  is  the  only  thing  of  all  that 
'asn't  gone  up  at  least  100  per  cent  or  more." 

The  strike  in  Glasgow — and  Scotland — ^was  a  pretty  big 
affair,  with  a  procession  and  trouble  only  narrowly  averted, 
according  to  the  papers.  On  the  whole,  however,  Scotland 
appeared  to  feel  the  effort  a  good  deal  of  a  failure. 

This  going  about  from  plant  to  plant — "Well,  what  is 
it?"  just  like  in  America — ^and  from  pubUc  house  to  public 
house  is  a  big  lot  harder  than  it  looks,  mainly,  I  guess,  be- 
cause hard  luck  and  hopelessness  have  to  be  my  passport 
and  stock  in  trade  as  it  were — with  it  getting,  without  de- 
lay, into  my  very  vitals.  The  surprising  thing  is  the  num- 
ber of  factories  in  which  it  is  possible  to  enter  without  diffi- 
culty in  the  search  of  the  gaffer — ^and  the  job  he  may  be 


226  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

able  to  give.  To-morrow  the  route  must  lie  farther  out  of 
the  city  where  the  newer  and  better,  also  bigger,  plants  are 
said  to  be.  Meanwhile  the  most  interesting  person  in  Shef- 
field to  date  is  the  blind  newspaper  man  who  stands  upon  a 
near-by  corner. 

"In  one  way  these  poor  fellows  that  have  been  blinded 
by  the  war  or  perhaps  on  their  jobs,  you  know,  are  worse 
off  than  I  am.  Their  lives,  you  see,  have  been  blasted  by 
knowing  what  they're  missing  now.  I  don't.  You  tell  me 
about  a  blue  sky.  That  means  nothing  to  me — nor  does  a 
yard  or  a  mile.  Still  I  am  getting  about  by  myself — though 
I  will  say  that  the  worst  experience  I  ever  had  was  that 
first  month  or  two  when  I  started  to  get  about  alone. 
Never  will  I  forget  it,  I  assure  you. 

"Of  course,  my  two  children  have  good  eyes.  Why? 
Why,  because  we  gave  them  good  care  and  didn't  show 
them  to  the  neighbors.  Ah,  yes,  'tis  that  that  makes  the 
trouble.  You  see,  here  the  first  thing  done  with  a  new 
baby  is  to  take  it  out  around  to  the  neighbors — yes,  even 
on  the  coldest  of  nights.  Believe  it  or  no,  but  I've  seen  it 
many  and  many  times.  You  see,  it's"a  great  event  and  they 
think  it  is  honoring  the  poor  young  chap — even  though  it 
may  be  ruining  his  eyes,  just  as  it  did  mine. 

"Yes,  I  tried  handing  my  customer  the  paper  with  my 
fingers  while  he  dropped  the  pennies  into  my  palm,  but 
expensive  experience  has  taught  me  that  every  coin  must 
pass  the  inspection  of  my  fingers — ^not  my  hand — before  I 
can  make  sure  of  letting  go  the  paper.  I'm  sorry.  Still, 
stealing  a  paper  from  a  bhnd  man's  not  as  mean  as  during 
the  war  raids.  You  know,  it  sometimes  happened  in  Lon- 
don that  the  very  ones  who  were  taken  in  off  the  streets 
from  the  bombs  and  all  to  the  shelter  of  a  roof  or  a  cellar 
for  the  night  turned  around  and  stole  their  papers  from  their 
hosts — that  is,  the  records  that]  gave  them  their  war  allow- 
ances and  so  on. 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    227 

"During  the  war,  of  course,  I  could  not  return  any  unsold 
papers;  I  can  now.  But  in  those  days  if  your  supply  gave 
out  before  those  who  worked  late  came  along,  then  they'd 
buy  elsewhere  and  you  lost  their  patronage,  didn't  you? 
Yes.  Then  if  you  had  too  many  the  next  day  you  lost  youjp 
money.    So  you  lost  either  way,  and  there  you  are  !J 

"No,  I'm  against  labor  running  the  government — you 
see,  they  don't  read  and  think  enough.  I  find  they  buy 
mostly  the  Herald — and  not  for  its  labor  news  but  for  its 
sporting  news.  Still  I  don't  like  the  coaHtion  government 
either.  I'm  against  arbitration,  too,  because  it  never  set- 
tles anything — it  only  compromises,  and  all  matters  are 
either  right  or  wrong — not  haK  right  or  half  wrong.  That's 
why  I'm  against  the  unions,  too.  Mainly  they're  too  sel- 
fish. We  should  all  find  our  best  good  by  helping  the  other 
fellow.  'Twon't  hurt  us,  will  it,  if  we  help  him  ?  No.  And, 
of  course,  the  same  should  be  between  nations  as  between 
us  single  individuals,  shouldn't  it? 

"Well,  I  hope  some  day  to  get  some  education  in  music. 
You  see,  I  can  always  tell  what  key  people  talk  in — or  play 
or  sing.  I  seem  to  have,  somehow,  absolute  pitch.  I 
only  wish  that  a  musical  college  might  give  me  a  chance. 
Well,  good  morning,  and  please  look  me  up  again,  won't 
you?    Yes." 

If  you  don't  keep  looking  at  his  ball-less  sockets,  you  have 
to  make  an  effort  to  figure  that  he  is  losing  very  much  out 
of  life,  considering  the  range  of  his  thinking  and  the  whole- 
someness  of  his  feehng.  The  question  is,  perhaps,  whether 
he  really  is  missing  anything  after  all.  Certainly,  at  least, 
he  has  a  very  great  and  apparently  a  very  considerate 
clientele.  I  can  imagine  they  all  enjoy  both  the  tone  of 
his  voice  and  the  sincerity  of  the  greeting  he  gives  to  every 
one  who  buys  his  wares. 


228  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Saturday,  Sept.  4th, 
Sheffield. 

The  fear  of  the  lay-off  sure  to  follow  upon  the  strikes 
threatened  both  by  the  electrical  trades  unions  and  by  the 
coal-miners  hangs  heavier  upon  the  district  than  the  usual 
smoke — ^and  smoke  consumers  would  be  one  of  the  best 
improvements  conceivable  for  this  whole  district. 

''Everybody's  striking  around  the  whole  bloo-ody  coun- 
try if  you  don't  say  good  morning  in  the  right  tone  of 
voice,"  according  to  one  of  the  men  in  a  huge  and  modern 
smelting  establishment  where  it  was  possible  to  loaf  a  num- 
ber of  hours  in  between  occasional  inquiries  for  work  at  the 
hands  of  a  gaffer — and  equally  occasional  refusals. 

"They're  discharging  even  the  foremen  over  there," 
said  a  young  girl  clerk  in  a  grocery-store  near  by  later. 
"Nothing  to  do  but  this  all  day" — with  her  hands  on  her 
hips.  "They're  pushing  all  the  luck  away  from  themselves 
and  from  us  by  their  everlasting 'striking.  For  myself,  I 
was  privately  tutored  for  typing.  Lost  my  place  when 
things  got  slow.  Now  there's  no  chance.  Every  girl  in 
the  country  is  studying  for  typing,  so  there's  quite  too  many. 
I  see  by  the  paper  that  the  Labor  Ministry  says  there's  al- 
ready too  many  women  also  in  dressmaking,  milUnery,  and 
upholstery.  Still  I  want  to  get  away  from  this  kind  of 
work.  .  .  .  No,  there's  not  a  bathroom  in  the  neighborhood, 
though  the  houses  are  pretty  new,  too.  I  think  all  houses 
should  have  them,  don't  you?" 

"If  there's  to  be  a  strike,  'twill  be  a  bloody  revolution, 
thot's  sure,"  came  from  several  workers  outside  the  gates 
of  one  of  the  district's  largest  plants,  where,  by  the  way,  a 
number  of  bookies  were  doing  a  very  prosperous  business  at 
the  noon-hour  either  with  the  men  themselves  or  with 
Johnny  and  Mary  who  had  been  sent  with  the  necessary 
shilhng  or  half-crown  together  with  the  folded-up  piece  of 
paper  carrying  the  scribbled  name  of  the  day's  favorite 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    229 

horse.  "Tell  'im  'e's  not  to  let  any  one  see  it,  missy,"  one 
youngster  was  cautioned  as  the  bookie  gave  her  covertly  a 
special  dope  sheet. 

''  'Tis  the  bloody  lads  that's  doin'  it,  naught  else.  Of 
course,  these  miners  works  'ard,  but  they're  selfish  and 
avaricious,  as  I  sees  it.  I'd  'op  it  quick  for  Canada  except 
for  me  mother,  but  'ere,  as  it  is,  I  near  gi'  up  me  wages  in 
fines  awnd  stoppages.  No  smokin',  no  this,  and  no  thot — 
awnd  the  'Lloyd  George'  (health  and  unemployment  insur- 
ance premiums  taken  out  of  the  pay) .  Especially  since  we've 
only  two  turns  the  week  'tis  naught  now  of  the  good  screw 
we  'ad  in  war  times.  An'  w'en  we  went  down  Monday  to 
find  a  plice  roonin'  full  like,  y'  know,  they  tellt  us  they're 
full  up!" 

"The  radicals  are  gettin'  'em  these  un'appy  days  when 
the  work  there  is  looks  like  runnin'  out,"  said  one  of  the 
local  officials  of  the  general  workers  union,  after  he  had  told 
of  the  amazing  variety  of  benefits  paid  its  men  for  total 
or  partial  disablement,  lockouts  or  strikes,  victimization, 
wrongful  discharge,  funeral,  etc.,  etc.  "I  used  to  be  a  rad- 
ical myself  so  I  can  understand  when  I  think  about  it  how 
every  labor  leader  'as  to  suffer  from  the  distrust  of  'is  men. 
Still  the  men  here  should  'ave  more  wages.  Back  in  1914 
the  standard  was  below  the  proper  level,  and  though  we're 
better  off  now  than  then,  still  the  miners  and  other  unskilled 
men  are  gettin'  too  much  in  comparison.  Perhaps  the  new 
mayor  will  'elp  us,  though  most  of  the  workers  think  'e's 
too  conservative.  He  and  many  others  of  us  still  believe 
in  gettin'  on  by  collective  bargaining,  with  the  strikes  and 
all  that,  but  the  majority  is  more  for  political  action — ^also, 
of  course,  direct  action.  .  .  .  The  Welshmen?  Oh,  they 
always  act  first  and  think  afterward — ^just  the  opposite  of 
your  Yorkshire  miner  friends." 

It  is  easy  to  beheve  that  thousands  of  workers  here  are 
extremely  grateful  that  the  city  is  lucky  enough  to  suffer 


230  PULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

from  the  great  clouds  of  smoke,  for  these  at  least  mean  work 
— jobs.  The  newspapers,  however,  certainly  do  give  sup- 
port for  a  cloudy  mood  in  what  seems  to  me  a  slumpy 
Sheffield  Saturday,  properly  so  called.  The  Manchester 
and  Liverpool  printers  are  rebelling  against  their  own 
national  union  by  going  out  on  strike.  Those  papers  are 
now  being  printed  in  London  or  elsewhere.  A  crisis  appears 
to  be  threatening  in  the  pottery  trade  in  its  relations  with 
its  70,000  men  making  additional  wage  demands.  In 
Scotland  two  unions — the  National  Union  of  Railway  Men 
and  the  Blacksmiths  Union — are  at  swords'  points.  The 
Yorkshire  farmers  are  striking  for  six  pounds  a  week — 
much  to  the  disgust  of  my  steel-making  friends  who  get 
more — "but  look  at  our  work  in  the  'eat  and  all !" 

In  spite  of  all  these  difficulties  one  of  the  leading  steel 
employers  here  gave  me  his  opinion  that  crushing  the 
unions  would  be  the  very  last  conceivable  thing  for  the 
employer  or  the  company  to  desire,  least  of  all  in  steel, 
where  union  and  employer  have  each  other's  confidence. 

"It  is  inefficiency  and  the  'go-slow'  policy  on  the  job  as 
practised  by  many  non-union  men,  as  well  as  unionists,  that 
threatens  the  well-being  of  the  district's  industry  and  work- 
ers. For  instance,  we  make  a  bid  for  some  of  our  products, 
estimating  seventy  hours  of  labor  on  it.  The  men  take  one 
hundred  and  twenty.  That  means  we  must  ask  higher 
prices  of  our  customers.  Our  customers,  in  turn,  must  ask 
more  from  their  customers,  and  these  happen  to  be  the  pub- 
He.  So  the  cost  of  Hving  is  made  higher.  The  wages  we 
pay  are  higher,  yes,  but  the  worker  has  not  earned  more  in 
buying  power.  Also,  we  stand  a  greater  chance  of  missing 
the  next  contract  when  we  bid  again,  and  then  the  district's 
workers  lose  the  chance  of  doing  the  job.  Here  in  Eng- 
land we  are  the  most  individualistic  nation  in  the  world. 
If  we  could  add  to  that  a  greater  invididual  productive- 
ness and  efficiency,  we  could  be  paramount  in  the  trade  of 
all  the  world. 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    231 

"No.  It's  not  unions  that  stand  in  the  way,  but  the  oc- 
casional selfish  or  self-seeking  leader  near  the  top  or  the  less 
important  leader  who  has  been  made  unhappy  and  venge- 
ful perhaps  by  some  employer's  carelessness.  Sometimes, 
too,  these  second-rate  leaders  drink  too  much  during  im- 
portant conferences  for  settling  difficult  points.  But  I  am 
sure  the  way  out  is  not  to  think  of  putting  industry  under 
the  government's  management.  While  serving  in  London 
during  the  war,  in  charge  of  important  government  ac- 
tivities, I  saw  men  being  promoted  practically  as  the  direct 
result  of  their  inefficiency.  You  see,  the  laws  forbid  any 
one  being  given  the  sack  without  the  most  elaborate  ar- 
rangements. It  also  forbids  a  person's  being  changed  to 
any  other  job  which  pays  less  than  his  present  position. 
Accordingly,  you  see,  when  a  department  head  wants  to 
rid  himself  of  some  poor  stick  he  gives  notice  to  other  de- 
partment heads  of  his  desire  to  transfer  this  worker  at  not 
less  than  such-and-such  a  salary.  Many  times  I've  seen 
these  men,  after  weeks  and  weeks  of  waiting  for  a  transfer 
at  the  same  figure,  finally,  transferred  to  a  much  higher 
salary!" 

An  American  business  man  here  has  also  been  keeping 
his  eyes  and  ears  open: 

"For  years  and  years  visitors  here  from  America  and  the 
Continent  have  figured  that  Sheffield,  with  its  old  dark 
factories  and  its  old  hand  processes,  would  last  about  three 
months  longer  in  competition  with  the  cutlery  manufac- 
turers of  the  rest  of  the  world.  Well,  I've  been  here  a  long 
time,  and  as  near  as  I  can  make  out  Sheffield's  old  industries 
are  going  just  a  little  stronger  than  ever.  You  see,  the 
cutlery  workers  here  are  mostly  high-skilled  men — the  best 
artisans  in  the  world  for  the  tempering  of  special  steels — on 
the  same  job,  lots  of  them,  for  generations — father  and  son 
and  grandson,  all  together.  One  of  the  oldest  firms  here, 
with  the  most  antique  methods,  exports  just  about  twice 


232  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

as  much  as  all  the  newer  chaps  combmed  with  all  their  new 
plants.  Lately  there  has  been  a  Httle  opposition  to  the 
better  working  conditions  urged  upon  some  of  the  old 
manufacturers  because  they  say  it  will  make  the  costs  too 
far  above  American  steel.  That,  of  course,  tends  to  lower 
American  stock  with  the  workers,  and  now  that  America 
has  gotten  out  from  under  the  fine  things  which  President 
Wilson  said,  America  is  not  so  popular  as  it  was,  though  the 
farther  down  the  Une  you  go  the  more  popular  it  is.  One 
of  the  quips  on  the  stage  has  been: 

"  'Jack,  how  fast  does  sound  travel?' 

"  'Oh,  I  should  say  about  five  seconds  to  the  mUe.' 

"  'Well,  how  far  is  America  from  here?' 

"  'Oh,  about  3,200  or  3,300  miles.' 

"  'Well,  there's  something  wrong  with  your  mathematics 
then,  old  chap,  or  why  is  it  that  the  bugle  blown  here  in 
1914  wasn't  heard  over  there  until  April,  1917?'  " 

He  beUeves  that  there  is  justice  in  the  frequent  claim 
that  drinking  is  not  so  heavy  as  it  used  to  be.  He  is  not  so 
certain  that  the  Char-a-banc  trips  are  to  be  accounted  an 
educational  factor,  considering  the  advantage  taken  of  the 
fact  that  British  law  permits  travellers  to  be  given  liquor 
even  in  the  hours  when  the  pubs  are  closed  to  the  ordinary 
citizens.  He  also  feels  that  a  tremendous  amount  of  time 
and  thought  is  given  to  racing;  his  experience  did  not  per- 
mit him  to  add  any  others  to  my  hst  as  made  in  a  recent 
shop:  "Stable  Whispers,"  "The  Racmg  Springer,"  "Pad- 
dock Secrets,"  "The  Early  Bird,"  etc.,  etc.  Nor  to  my 
recollection  of  the  great  piles  of  publications  for  the  women  as 
lately  noticed  in  a  news-stand:  "Peg's  Paper — The  Price  of 
a  Kiss,"  "Home  Mirror — Her  Hateful  Lover,"  "Forget- 
Me-Not  Novels,"  "Smart  Fiction,"  "Mizpah  Novels— 
A  Young  Wife's  Secret,"  etc.,  etc. 

So  I  guess,  on  the  whole,  I'll  not  worry  about  Sheffield's 
ability  to  take  care  of  herself  or,  for  that  matter,  of  England 


MIDST  THE  MINERS  AND  MACHINISTS    233 

in  general,  seeing  that  all  the  rest  of  the  world  seems  to  be 
about  the  same  distance  up  in  the  air.  Must  catch  a  train 
for  Sunday  up  in  Lemington  and  then  hope  for  some  inter- 
esting days  before  the  catching  of  a  boat — if  possible,  one 
that  will  give  me  a  chance  to  work  my  passage  and  so  get  a 
little  closer  to  that  problem  of  the  American  merchant  ma- 
rine— namely,  the  American  sailor  man. 

Later. 

The  lad  who  helped  me  to  the  station  has,  like  all  the 
others,  his  eye  on  the  job. 

"Y'  see,  I  had  to  leave  school  and  the  farm  when  I  was 
thirteen.  Then  at  fourteen  I  was  making  shells  for  the  war 
— ^at  four  pounds  the  week — not  bad,  y'  know.  Now  I'm 
learning  all  about  running  a  licensed  house — ^how  to  serve 
whiskey  and  gin  and  all  the  various  drinks,  y'  see.  After 
that,  I  can  get  a  job  anywhere.  One  thing's  certain,  your 
friend  Pussyfoot  would  'cop  it'  here  in  Sheffield!  It's  a 
fine  house  where  I  am  now — and  where  you've  been.  They 
treat  even  the  lowest  of  the  maids  as  members  of  the  fam- 
ily.'' 


CHAPTER  VII 

LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON 

Tuesday,  Sept.  7th, 
Whitechapel  District, 
London,  East  End. 

Three  hundred  years  ago  to-day  the  Pilgrim  fathers 
sailed  out  of  Plymouth  harbor  for  the  New  World  and  evi- 
dently this  part  of  the  world,  at  least,  thinks  they  did  a 
good  job.  Too  bad  that  they  failed  so  often  to  give  to  the 
Quakers,  Baptists,  witches,  Puritans,  and  others  full  por- 
tions of  the  same  freedom  they  were  seeking  for  themselves. 
Perhaps,  however,  their  shortcoming  makes  it  easier  to 
understand  how  the  modern  labor  problem  grows  up  at  the 
hands  of  the  foreman,  superintendent,  or  manager  who  only 
a  few  years  ago  may  have  himself  hoped  for  larger  free- 
dom as  a  worker.  It  is  undoubtedly  easier  over  here  than 
in  America  to  understand  how  infinitely  numerous  and  com- 
plex are  the  factors  in  this  matter  of  right  relations  between 
employee  and  employer.  To  an  extent  unusual  with  us  the 
average  employer  here  is  forced  by  the  world-wide  char- 
acter of  his  market  to  keep  his  eye — ^and  base  his  pohcies — 
upon  the  selUng  prices,  market  conditions,  money  and  ex- 
change rates,  etc.,  etc.,  of  countries  all  around  the  globe. 
The  attitude  of  the  government,  not  only  of  Britain  but  of 
Italy  or  Spain,  Australia  or  America,  can  apparently — and 
without  half -trying — "ball  up"  the  whole  matter  of  a 
steady  or  an  unsteady  job,  a  happy  or  an  unhappy  worker, 
to  say  nothing  of  a  happy  or  unhappy  employer.  Even  the 
interest  or  apathy  of  some  strange  people  three  thousand 
miles  away  may  complicate  the  whole  situation — ^just  as  our 
own  unwillingness  to  eat  rice  and  the  English  unwillingness 

234 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    235 

to  eat  com  tremendously  complicated  the  world's  food  prob- 
lem in  the  days  of  the  submarines. 

On  the  way  down  here  yesterday  from  Coventry  and 
Leamington  our  compartment  brought  together  several  of 
those  threads  which  tie  the  world  together  here  in  the 
manner  sure  to  strike  an  American. 

"A  fair  place  for  a  man  or  woman  is  New  Zealand,"  said 
the  sailor  boy  on  leave  from  his  ship — "that  is,  if  they've 
no  kiddies.  But  there's  no  chance  for  'ome  in  two  years — 
with  two  rooms  a-costin'  them  two  pounds  a  week.  Every 
job  'as  a  union  for  it  and  every  man  must  stick  to  'is  job — 
and  every  woman.  A  cook  can  only  cook  and  a  maid  can 
only  maid.  A  bartender  daren't  move  from  one  bar  to  an- 
other, even  under  thesame  roof.  There  in  New  South  Wales 
the  coal  miners  have  been  on  strike  eighteen  months  with  six 
of  the  mines  now  flooded — ruined,  you  might  say.  You  see, 
they  were  promised  more  money  after  the  war  and  the  gov- 
ernment has  delayed. 

"Servant-girls  work  only  seven  and  one-half  hours  and 
get  their  thirty  shilUn'  a  week  besides  bein'  'found.'  But 
o'  course  there's  little  manufacturing  in  Australia  and  prac- 
tically none  in  New  Zealand.  Still,  I'm  wondering  what  the 
New  Zealand  farmers  would  do  if  they  should  hear  that  the 
10,000  tons  of  butter  for  which  they  get  around  two  bob  a 
pound  is  sold  in  London  for  six.  Well,  anyway,  I've  got 
my  job  sure  because  I've  served  my  apprentice  and  am  an 
able-bodied  seaman,  and  they're  gettin'  scarce,  y'  know." 

The  young  and  pretty  mother  was  kept  too  busy  by  her 
three  children  to  give  him  the  attention  he  wanted,  and 
when  he  got  out  at  the  station  she  only  nodded  with  what 
must  have  been  a  disappointing  smile  to  his  cheerful 
"Ta-ta !"  She  took  more  interest  in  the  young  coal  miner 
as  he  waxed  enthusiastic  over  his  job  as  foreman  of  the 
machine-cutters  in  a  Midland  coal-mine — ^his  job  and  his 
last  piece  of  good  fortune. 


236  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

"Well,  y'see,  I  just  'ad  an  accident — a  nawsty  one,  though 
a  bit  of  luck  wi'  it,  too.  Y'  see,  as  we  was  workin'  at  the  face 
a  fall  came  very  sudden  and  I  was  pinned  beneath  it.  When 
finally  they  took  me  out  me  left  foot  was  fair  smashed  to 
smithereens,  ye  might  say.  But  all  thot  did  fer  me  was  to 
give  me  a  new  foot,  and  'ere  ye  can  see  it's  a  fine  one." 

He  had  us  all  guessing  as,  in  a  jiffy,  he  had  his  shoe  off 
and  was  demonstrating  with  great  pride  the  very  latest  thing 
in  artificial  feet. 

"So  ye  can  see  'tis  much  better  than  if  me  real  foot  'ad 
a  been  there.  I  would  'ave  left  it  there  in  the  mine  if  I  'adn't 
left  it  across  the  Channel  on  Flanders  field,  ye  might  say, 
though  we  wasn't  there  just  then.  Now  I  get  me  disabil- 
ity pension  from  the  government  and  that  keeps  me  in 
ale  money — and,  in  a  manner  of  speakin',  fresh  feet !" 

From  that  the  talk  goes  to  the  wound,  the  snake-bite  the 
quiet  young  man's  cousin  got  last  month  in  India — ^also  the 
cost  of  clothes  and  rent  out  there.  The  splendid  thing  is  to 
see  how  sure  everybody  feels  of  himself  the  moment  he  can 
find  a  place  that  allows  him  to  connect  up  the  general 
poUtical  or  other  gossip  with  some  of  his  own — or  at  least  a 
relative's  or  close  friend's — ^actual  experience,  particularly 
the  experience  connected  with  his  job.  The  surprising  thing 
again,  a  few  days  later,  is  to  see  how  little  this  vivid  and 
compelling,  "close-up"  movie  of  our  own  personal,  six-days- 
the-week  experience  there  on  the  job  is  taken  so  httle  note 
of  on  the  seventh  day  by  the  teachers  of  the  art  of  living  in 
the  churches. 

To  be  sure,  the  minister  last  Sunday  in  talking  to  a  group 
of  boys  gathered  at  a  mission  called  work  "God's  greatest 
gift  to  man."  The  difficulty  was  that  he  failed  to  find  any- 
thing to  say  about  it  indicating  that  he  thought  it  really 
attractive  in  spite  of  the  fact  that  most  of  the  youngsters 
are  probably  teasing  the  life  out  of  their  fathers  and  moth- 
ers to  let  them  quit  school  and  show  themselves  men  by 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    237 

getting  a  job.  Still  if  he  had  aroused  enthusiasm  for  his 
subject  instead  of  a  sense  of  unpleasant  duty,  the  words  of 
the  hymn  would  have  made  it  seem  hardly  worth  while  to 
bother  about  it: 

"A  few  more  days  the  cross  to  bear, 
And  then  with  Christ  a  cross  to  wear; 
A  few  more  marches  weary, 
Then  we'll  gather  'ome. 

O'er  Time's  rapid  river, 
Soon  we'll  rest  forever; 
No  more  marchings  weary, 
When  we  gather  'ome." 

Luckily  the  boys  weren't  troubled  by  the  words  enough  to 
prevent  their  handhng  the  tune  most  lustily — so  lustily,  in 
fact,  that  when  the  prayer  followed,  it  was  hard  to  follow: ' 

"Oh,  Lord —  Hi  sye  now,  boys,  are  we  goin'  to  'ave  a  bit 
of  silence?  Now  then —  Oh,  Lord,  we  thank  thee  that — 
Now,  'ere,  Hi  tell  ye  I  won't  be  fooled  with — you  boys  on 
the  back  seat  there !    Now —    Well —    Oh,  Lord " 

Still  it  is  easy  to  expect  great  things  from  a  crowd  that 
Qome  so  close  to  taking  the  roof  off  with  their  enthusiastic : 
"  'Ail  'im !    'Ail  'im !    'Ail  'im  oo  sives  you  by  'is  grice." 

A  day  or  so  in  Coventry  gives  a  good  promise  for  the  way 
into  a  better  industrial  situation.  This  is  the  Detroit  of 
Great  Britain.  The  newness  of  the  motor  industry  has  per- 
mitted the  building  of  splendidly  lighted  and  well-planned 
factories  for  the  building  of  various  well-known  motor-cars, 
ordnance,  and  the  making  of  machine  tools.  With  the  large 
adoption  of  piece-work  the  earnings  are  said  to  average,  at 
least  in  certain  of  the  motor  plants,  seven  pounds  ten  per 
week.  According  to  one  executive  the  union  heads,  for  the 
most  part,  are  earnest,  honest,  and  fairly  easy  to  get  along 
with.  There  is  evidently  a  good  deal  of  discussion  back  and 
forth  on  the  engineers'  demand  of  "one  man,  one  machine" 


238  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

together  with  the  accompanying  insistence  that  every  ma- 
chine must  have  a  skilled  man. 

Most  attractive  are  the  workers'  homes  and  these  are,  of 
course,  immensely  helped  by  the  remarkable  cleanUness  of 
the  atmosphere.  This,  in  turn,  is  due  to  the  very  up-to- 
date  plan  whereby  practically  all  the  local  factories  buy 
their  power  of  the  city  electric-light  plant — ^at  an  extremely 
low  cost.  From  the  huge  stacks  of  this  estabHshment — 
called  by  leading  citizens  "the  most  efficient  electric  plant 
in  England" — ^not  a  wisp  of  smoke  is  to  be  seen.  The 
Labor  party's  proposal  for  cheapening  production  and  im- 
proving Ufe  throughout  the  industrial  cities  of  the  country 
by  locating  such  plants  at  mine  mouth  certainly  look  good 
after  weeks  in  such  places  as  Swansea,  Glasgow,  Middles- 
brough, and  Sheffield — not  to  mention  Cleveland,  Pitts- 
burgh, South  Chicago,  etc. 

Coventry  is  said  to  set  the  pace  for  the  country  on  wages, 
though  considered  more  or  less  of  a  law  unto  itself  with  so 
much  emphasis  on  piece-work,  skilled  men,  and  exceptional 
Uving  and  working  conditions.  Certainly  there  is  an  ex- 
ceptional looking  lot  of  men  in  the  plants  visited.  If  any 
outstanding  unhappiness  is  peculiar  to  the  place  it  might 
come  from  that  feeling  that  the  pay  for  the  skilled  men  is 
unduly  low  in  comparison  with  the  unskilled — especially 
likely  where  as  here  a  threat  is  being  constantly  made  upon 
skilled  jobs  by  the  rapid  advance  of  the  machine  tools 
which  permits — in  fact,  favors — the  increasing  use  of  non- 
skilled  or  semi-skilled  men.  Of  course,  a  careful  labor 
diagnosis  might  discover  unreasonable  or  unfair  employers. 
This  is  greatly  to  be  doubted,  considering  the  up-to-date- 
ness of  the  plants  and  the  way  in  which  most  of  the  em- 
ployers appear  to  be  alive  to  the  labor  problem  and  at  work 
upon  it  by  means  of  carefully  organized  labor  departments. 
One  man  connected  with  one  of  these  does  feel  that  the 
workers  are  not  doing  enough  to  keep  the  standard  of  their 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    239 

living  up  to  their  increased  earnings:  "Men  who  drank 
penny  pre-war  beer  now  try  to  demonstrate  their  progress 
by  drinking  shilling  whiskey — if  not  thirty-five-shilling 
champagne!" 

Few  cities  of  the  country  surely  could  give  a  more  in- 
teresting representation  of  the  newer  and  more  hopeful 
domestication  of  the  modem  industrial  system  by  managers 
and  men  working  and  living  steadily  and  normally  under 
good  conditions  of  air  and  sunlight  and  homes  and  wages 
and  the  old  historic  days  of  the  guilds  and  the  Lady  Godivas 
— also  the  bell-ringers.  In  the  grand  old  cathedral  the  an- 
cient deacons  evidently  know  something  about  the  way  men 
like  to  feel,  that  what  they  are  doing  is  contributing  some- 
thing worth  while  to  the  world's  history  and  happiness. 
Just  imagine  the  satisfaction  it  must  be  to  the  grandchil- 
dren and  great-grandchildren  who  doubtless  come  occa- 
sionally to  look  at  the  tribute  paid  their  progenitors  in  the 
handsomely  painted  statement  which,  with  others,  adorns 
the  vestibule: 

"To  celebrate  the  glorious  victory  of  Lord  Wellington 
over  the  French  at  Salamanca,  a  peal  was  rung  on  these 
bells  on  Monday  17th  August,  1812,  consisting,  of  5,000 
changes  of  Oxford  Treble  Bob  Royal  in  three  hours  and  33 
minutes  by  the  following  persons: 

Geo.  Hawkes,  Treble 
Will-  PhilUps,  2nd  Treble 
etc.,  etc. 
"N.B.    The  above  peal  was  composed  and  called  by 
Joseph  Keene." 

The  "reverse  English"  of  such  honorable  recognition  is 
suggested  hardly  more  than  fifty  yards  away  by  an  ancient 
pair  of  disconcertingly  well-worn  stocks.  They  were  used„ 
in  the  city's  market-place,  until  1865 ! 


240  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

I  wonder  if  there  is  any  connection  between  our  failure  to 
understand  how  thoroughly  everybody  wants  recognition 
when  he  rings  the  bell  or  fires  the  seething  furnace  and  the 
general  feeling  that  all  the  world  is  walking  over  a  mine. 
In  the  laying  of  that  mine  by  the  messing  up  of  our  relations 
with  each  other,  the  war  appears  to  have  played  a  much 
greater  part  than  we  at  home  have  realized.  I  hate  to  be- 
lieve the  stories  told  about  the  loafing  done  by  many  work- 
ers in  those  hectic  days  when  ''if  a  man  carried  a  hammer  he 
was  considered  to  be  doing  hard  work,"  or  ''every  man  in 
his  gang  paid  him  a  quid  a  week  simply  to  wake  them  up  at 
night  when  the  boss  came  out  to  have  a  look"  or  when 
"they  played  cards  or  cricket  or  football  right  there  in  the 
mill,  with  him  getting  an  extra  quid  for  watching  out  for 
the  boss."  "And  all  because  everybody  got  the  idea  that 
the  government's  purse  was  bottomless — and  is — and  right 
to-day  when  a  man  comes  from  the  employment  office  with 
the  crowd  to  where  you  made  application  for  a  man,  every 
blessed  one  of  them  shoves  out  his  card  to  you  with  his 
'sign  there  to  show  you're  "suited"  ' — ^with  your  signature 
saying  that  you  don't  need  him  because  you've  already 
found  a  man,  he  can  go  back  to  get  his  unemployment  dole 
— while  others  refuse  the  job  unless  you  can  promise  at  least 
a  week  of  it  because  otherwise  the  one-day  or  two-day  job 
with  you  may  prevent  their  getting  their  unemployment 
dole  for  the  full  two  weeks." 

Back  here  in  London  again  in  the  Whitechapel  boarding- 
house  it  is  hard  to  know  where  the  answer  is — especially 
with  J.  H.  Thomas  saying  that  in  his  opinion  the  past  few 
weeks  have  been  the  most  momentous  in  the  whole  history 
of  the  British  labor  movement ! 

LcUer. 

The  fireman  of  the  train  that  brought  us  into  town  ought 
not  to  be  forgot.  For  himself  it's  easy  enough:  "Most  of 
the  time  sittin'  right  on  this  box  'ere,  a-coastin'  down  from 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    241 

ofif  the  Chiltern  'ills."  But  for  his  engine :  "  Wy,  it's  a  shame 
to  treat  an  engine  like  this  one's  bein'  treated.  'Ere's  to- 
day, for  instance.  We  come  from  Oxford  up  to  Wolver- 
'ampton  and  then  from  Wolver'ampton  'ere  to  London. 
From  'ere  she  goes  back  at  two  o'clock  and  then  on  through 
Banbury  to  Oxford.  But  never  a  w'imper  comes  from  'er. 
Like  a  top  she  runs,  y'  know. . . .  But  it's  all  from  the  short- 
age on  account  of  the  war." 

Thursday,  Sept.  9th, 
Whitechapel,  London. 

Great  good  luck  has  made  it  possible  to  see  most  of  the 
country's  labor  leaders  perform  all  at  once — down  at  the 
great  national  labor  conference  at  Portsmouth  to-day. 
Representatives  of  over  four  and  a  half  millions  of  the 
country's  workers  are  there  up  to  their  eyes — their  very  seri- 
ous eyes — in  the  effort  to  plan  the  moves  which  should  fol- 
low what  their  chairman,  Mr.  J.  H.  Thomas,  has  called  'Hhe 
most  momentous  weeks  in  the  history  of  the  British  labor 
movement."  They  make  a  group  of  very  intelligent-looking 
men — also  one  which  knows  how  to  get  business  done. 

Mr.  Thomas  never  got  "fussed"  and  never  seemed  to 
swerve  from  his  desire  to  keep  on  the  steel  rails  of  reason- 
able and  practicable  affairs — yet  always  with  an  aggressive- 
ness of  manner  and  of  voice  which  meant  that  if  these  steel 
rails  could  not  be  laid,  then  possibly  other  emergency  ma- 
terials might  be  used  for  the  meeting  of  what  he  evidently 
considers  is  a  genuine  emergency. 

Mr.  Clynes,  Member  of  Parliament,  in  spite  of  his  quiet 
manner,  had  no  difficulty  in  getting  a  splendid  hearing  at 
the  hands  of  the  whole  great  thousand — a  self-possessed 
man,  evidently  respected  thoroughly  for  his  sincerity  and 
sense.  Mr.  Bevans  quite  disagreed  with  him  as  to  the  par- 
ticular method,  but  was  thoroughly  certain  that  the  labor 
movement  now  requires  a  sort  of  general  staff  of  all  the 
unions  which  will  not  only  serve  to  direct  the  whole  nation 


242  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

in  the  time  of  a  nation-wide  strike — in  the  manner  of  the 
Council  of  Action — but  will  also  work  continuously  for  the 
avoidance  of  strikes.  A  very  forceful  speaker  Mr.  Bevans 
certainly  is,  and  much  respected  for  his  victory  last  spring  in 
obtaining  the  two-shillings-an-hour  wage  for  the  dockers  and 
longshoremen. 

The  best  attention  of  all  was  given  to  Arthur  Henderson. 
In  fact,  it  was  a  regular  ovation  for  his  return  from  a  re- 
tirement caused  by  illness.  He  used  to  be  a  Methodist 
local  preacher  and  is  felt  to  have  stood  only  for  what  he 
considers  the  fairest  of  Christian  deaUngs  throughout  his 
thirty-seven  years  of  connection  with  the  labor  move- 
ment. He  praised  the  spirit  of  labor's  pohtical  [and]  in- 
dustrial activities  of  the  past  few  months  directed  as[^they 
were  at  securing  peace  among  the  nations  and  made  a  very 
short  but  moving  appeal  for  the  continuation  of  the  extraor- 
dinary unity  which  has  distinguished  all  the  labor  groups 
in  their  opposition  to  the  possibihty  of  war  with  Russia. 
If  the  Labor  party  comes  into  power  they  will  certainly 
have  in  both  him  and  Mr.  Thomas  men  of  ideals,  square- 
ness, and  strength — mental  and  moral. 

George  Lansbury,  editor  of  the  Herald,  was  on  hand, 
and  smiling  in  spite  of  the  general  public's — though  not 
labor's — acceptance  of  the  government's  charges  that  mem- 
bers of  the  Herald^s  staff  have  been  receiving  large  sums  of 
money  and  jewels  from  the  Bolshevists — in  fact,  that  Mr. 
Lansbury's  own  son  has  been  in  direct  contact  with  the  Bol- 
shevist emissaries  for  placing  the  Herald's  columns  at  their 
disposal.  Lansbury  represents  a  very  remarkable  combina- 
tion of  highly  religious  and  Christian  behefs  and  scruples 
with  a  highly  revolutionary  pohtical  philosophy.  His 
great  word  is  *'love"  and  he  appealed  to  his  audience  not 
to  hate  capitalists  but  to  consider  them  only  the  sad  victims 
of  the  capitalistic  system.  He  sees  the  revolutionary  move- 
ment as  a  highly  spiritual  "drive"  for  bringing  into  immedi- 
ate or  early  operation  the  brotherhood  of  man.    The  orgy 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    243 

of  blood  caused  by  the  killing  of  those  whose  presence  would 
complicate  or  endanger  the  new  regime,  he  appears  to  re- 
gard as  a  highly  unfortunate  but  inevitable  first  step  toward 
the  reign  of  good-will  which  the  London  Soviet  will  direct. 
His  view-point  made  it  easier  for  me  to  see  how  the  "Bol- 
shy" leader  there  in  the  South  Wales  mine  came  into  his 
own  willingness  to  "devote  twelve  years  of  my  life  for 
the  saving  of  England  against  the  competition  of  Soviet 
Russia!" 

A  rather  weak-voiced  representative  of  the  co-operative 
movement  reported  the  strong  and  steady  increase  of  the 
co-operative  enterprises  and  called  attention  to  the  way  in 
which  these  are  fighting  the  capitalist  regime  by  constantly 
reducing  the  amount  of  money  available  for  investment  for 
competitive  profit. 

Among  the  various  "fraternal  delegates"  the  one  from 
Canada  appeared  surprisingly  refined  and  gentlemanly,  but 
was  hardly  able  to  make  himself  heard.  He  assured  the 
convention  that  the  "0.  B.  U.,"  or  One  Big  Union  idea  is 
not  so  important  in  Canadian  labor  matters  as  its  repre- 
sentatives claim.  He  also  appealed  to  his  fellow  workers  to 
discount  among  the  workers  in  the  cities  and  provinces  of 
Great  Britain  the  over-attractive  pictures  of  Canadian  life 
painted  by  Canadian  employers'  associations.  These  pre- 
paid the  passage  of  workers,  but  generally  produced,  within 
a  very  few  weeks,  a  greatly  disappointed  immigrant. 

Unfortunately  it  must  be  confessed  that  the  two  fraternal 
delegates  sent  by  our  own  great  union  movement  were  far 
below  the  generality  of  speakers.  They  were  given  the 
scant  hearing  which  both  the  text  and  the  delivery  of  their 
greetings  deserved. 

Without  respect  to  nationality  the  crowds  at  the  edges 
of  the  zone  of  good  hearing  complicated  the  situation  for 
the  weak-voiced  speakers  and  for  the  other  listeners  with 
their  scarcely  suppressed: 

"We  cawn't  'ear,"  "Wat  'ave  we  done  to  deserve  this?" 


244  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

"Good  Lord,  'ere  we  go  for  another  'arf  'our!"  "Lead  'im 
out!"  etc.,  etc. 

"It  is  greatly  to  be  regretted  that  such  a  huge  hall  with 
the  acoustics  none  too  good  requires  such  huge  physical 
effort  that  it  always  plays  into  the  hands  of  the  demagogues, 
trained  as  they  are  in  the  art  of  making  their  great  voices 
carry  to  the  farthest  comers,"  one  of  the  leaders  on  the  plat- 
form whispered  to  me.  "That  discourages,  you  see,  the 
serious  and  thoughtful  discussion  which  is  needed  at  every 
convention  and  particularly  at  such  a  critical  time  as  this." 

The  words  of  one  of  the  best  orators  on  the  programme  were  i 
lost,  not  because  of  acoustics,  but  because  as  a  representa- 
tive of  the  General  Federation  of  Workers  of  France  he 
spoke  in  French.  It  must  be  said,  however,  that  the  crowd 
came  in  with  its  applause  quite  properly  at  the  end  of  a 
highly  moving  peroration  on  behalf  of  a  pretty  extreme 
programme  whereby  all  the  nations  of  the  world  should 
take  over  inunediately  the  various  industries,  beginning  first 
with  coal  and  transportation.  When  a  very  distinguished- 
looking  representative  of  the  union  of  musicians  offered  the 
translation,  several  cheerful  listeners  called  to  him  to  "Why 
not  set  it  to  music?" 

The  Dutch  secretary  of  the  International  Federation  of 
Trade  Unions  made  a  very  masterly  speech  in  English,  but 
was  not  slow  to  urge  the  whole  group  to  rise  up  against  the 
capitalistic  masters. 

"  'Britains  never  will  be'slaves,*  so  your  poet  sings,  but 
nevertheless  that  is  what  they  are  unless  they  can  take  ad- 
vantage of  the  present  unity  to  put  an  end — a.  victorious 
end — to  the  class  struggle ! 

"Without  the  British  unions  and  their  aggressive  and 
united  leadership  the  proletariat  movement  of  the  world 
cannot  build  the  world  progress  and  the  world  peace  which 
is  envisaged  in  the  eyes  of  working  men  throughout  the 
world." 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    245 

Mixed  in  the  applause  that  followed  were  a  number  of 
cheers  of:  "We  are  for  socialism!" 

Later  this  same  representative  told  a  small  group  of  us 
about  the  disunity  of  the  261,000  Dutch  workers,  with 
100,000  of  them  in  one  general  union,  60,000  others  in  a 
CathoHc  union,  another  60,000  in  a  body  of  anti-revolution- 
aries, etc.,  etc.  "Seventeen  different  parties  make  up  our 
country's  Congress,  including  four  different  kinds  and 
varieties  of  Socialists!"  He  is  greatly  disappointed  that 
Mr.  Gompers,  while  opposing  political  action  and  organiza- 
tion for  the  American  Federation  of  Labor,  nevertheless  is 
perfectly  wilhng  to  have  the  various  Federation  conven- 
tions break  in  upon  European  politics  with  this  or  that 
resolution  regarding  Ireland  and  other  parts  of  the  world ! 
He  told  how  international  relationships  between  great  bodies 
of  men  can  be  compUcated  by  extremely  small,  if  not  trivial, 
frictions.  It  seems  that  in  recent  international  congresses 
much  bad  temper  has  been  caused  because  the  American 
delegates  would  not  follow  the  rule  that  any  person  wishing 
the  floor  must  send  up  his  name  to  the  chairman  and  so  re- 
ceive his  assignment  of  time  and  place.  As  a  result  the 
American  delegates  would  get  up  and  insist  upon  speaking, 
caUing  out  finally  in  their  irritation  before  the  gavel  finally 
banged  them  down:  "Mr.  Chairman!  Mr.  Chairman!  I 
insist  I  have  the  floor.  .  .  .  But  I  see  no  one  else  using  it ! 
Why  do  you  refuse  me  my  right  to  speak?  I  have  tried 
now  six  times,"  etc.,  etc. 

Partly  as  the  result  of  such  misunderstandings  and 
partly  as  the  result  of  its  conviction  that  the  International 
Federation  of  Trade  Unions  is  more  revolutionary  than  it 
cares  to  be,  the  American  Federation  of  Labor  has  not  sent 
in  its  recent  dues  and  is,  accordingly,  likely  to  be  barred 
out  from  the  convention  next  year.  Dutch  labor,  it  says, 
is  almost  entirely  Socialist.  The  country  has  practically  no 
iron  and  steel  industry,  though  there  are  50,000  workers  in 


246  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

the  metal  trades;  most  of  the  country's  workers  make  the 
textiles  that  go  to  Java  and  similar  colonies;  the  diamond 
workers  in  Amsterdam  are  still  the  leaders  of  the  skilled 
workers  of  the  country,  though  they,  too,  have  fallen  some- 
what behind  as  compared  with  their  pre-war  pre-eminence 
over  the  less  skilled  and  the  unskilled  workers. 

It  was  possible  to  meet  a  number  of  what,  I  presume, 
might  be  called  the  intellectuals — men  who,  like  Philhp 
Snowden,  are  in  poHtics  as  leaders  of  the  Independent  Labor 
party,  or  who  are  giving  their  private  means  and  their  Hves 
and  their  educated  minds  to  the  advancement  of  the  labor 
movement.  Because  these  are  often  not  officials,  many  of 
them  seem  to  have  no  representation  on  the  floor,  though 
their  names  are  to  be  seen  at  the  bottom  of  such  important 
matters  as  reports  on  the  cost  of  living  or  plans  for  a  tax 
upon  capital  instead  of  income,  etc.,  etc.  A  group  of  these 
expressed  to  me  the  beHef  that  American  education  misses 
a  considerably  larger  proportion  of  American  children  than 
we  patriotic  Americans  Uke  to  beheve.  Also  that  we  are 
highly  negligent  in  allowing  the  situation  to  continue  where- 
by a  few  captains  of  industry  can  become  so  enormously 
wealthy  while  so  many  other  thousands  and  millions  con- 
tinue poor. 

There  seems  to  be  no  group  in  America  quite  comparable 
to  such  a  group  of  "Assistants  to  the  Labor  Movement." 
Even  the  editors  of  some  of  our  most  labor-favoring  papers 
reahze  that  any  efforts  to  help  the  American  laborer  to 
fight  his  battles  at  such  a  convention  would  be  met  with 
little  other  than  jeers  by  workers  who  insist  upon  their 
abiUty  to  look  out  for  themselves.  The  reason  is,  perhaps, 
that  the  workers  at  home  have  not  yet  begun  to  fight  on 
the  poUtical  as  well  as  on  the  industrial  side.  In  the  nature 
of  the  case  an  outsider  is  hardly  in  a  position  to  help  di- 
rectly toward  settling  an  industrial  dispute  unless  given  an 
unmistakable  and  urgent  invitation. 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    247 

One  of  the  men  whose  face  was  distmguishable  in  the 
multitude  but  who  had  Httle  to  say,  though  he  is  a  member 
of  Parhament  and  a  Privy  Counsellor  of  the  realm,  is  John 
Hodge,  leader,  with  Arthur  Pugh,  of  the  highly  successful 
Iron  and  Steel  Trades  Confederation.  He  is  reported  to 
have  grown  up  out  of  the  worst  and  hardest  of  steel  and 
iron  jobs  and  to  have  nothing  in  common  with  those  leaders 
who  have  been  educated  at  Ruskin  College.  It  is  the  highly 
intellectual  training  of  these  last  that  is  said  by  some  to 
have  overimpressed  many  American  investigators  with  the 
vision  and  constructive  thoughtfulness  of  the.EngUsh  labor 
movement. 

On  the  whole,  however,  no  one  can  watch  for  even  a 
short  time  the  dehberations  of  these  representatives  of 
their  working  millions  without  coming  to  feel  that,  what- 
ever may  be  said  for  the  American  working  man  as  compared 
with  the  British,  the  Enghsh  labor  leader  is  without  doubt 
to  be  considered  a  better-trained  and  better-educated  man 
than  the  American  leader.  It  is  one  of  these  leaders  that 
gave  me  the  best  summing  up  of  the  evils  of  the  irregular 
job  yet  encountered. 

"Of  course,  the  average  employer  or  citizen  is  not  so  far 
off  when  he  says  that  the  average  docker  or  longshoreman 
does  not  want  a  steady  job.  It  is  true  that  in  many  cases 
the  men  can  hardly  stand  the  strain  of,  say,  three  weeks  of 
steady  work.  But  this  is  because  the  man  has  been  phys- 
ically and  morally  demoralized  by  years  and  years  of  never 
knowing  from  one  day's  end  to  another  whether  to-morrow's 
sun  will  find  him  at  work." 

Then  he  added  a  phrase  which  I  am  inclined  to  think 
must  somehow  get  itself  written  upon  the  heart  of  every 
citizen  in  Christendom  who  would  wish  genuinely  to  help 
solve  the  problem  of  unhappy  workers: 

"Irregular  work  always  makes  an  irregular  worker.  And 
an  irregular  worker  is  always  bound  to  be  an  irregular  citizen." 


248  ^  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

That  strikes  me  as  one  of  the  most  vital  and  deep-going 
generaUzations  yet  heard  in  all  my  travels  and  adventures. 
It  goes  right  to  the  heart  of  the  matter  because  it  goes 
right  to  the  heart  of  the  worker,  and  the  heart  of  the  worker 
is — because  it  must  be  in  an  industrial  era — the  heart  of 
the  man  and  the  citizen. 

It's  safe  to  say  that  a  very  large  proportion  of  the  trans- 
actions of  such  a  conference  as  to-day's,  and  an  even  larger 
percentage  of  all  the  words  spoken  there  in  more  or  less 
bitterness  of  feeling,  would  have  been  made  unnecessary 
if  the  world  could  somehow  have  contrived  for,  say,  the 
last  twenty  years,  to  have  worked  on  that  nineteen-word 
proposition  of  his.  I  grow  daily  more  certain  that  there 
are  millions  of  workers  in  the  world  whose  real  need  is  a 
steady  job.  By  long  experience  most  of  these  have  learned 
that  the  only  appeal  which  gets  the  ear  either  of  the  em- 
ployer or  of  the  public  is  the  appeal  which  has  that  appeal 
for  steady  work  camouflaged,  either  as  an  appeal  for  more 
wages  or  for  fewer  hours,  in  order  that  whatever  work  there 
is  may  be  spread  about  as  evenly  as  possible  for  the  benefit 
of  the  greatest  number  of  work-needing  workers. 

When  I  think  of  that  and  of  the  number  of  men  here  who 
are  looking  for  jobs — and  according  to  the  papers  it  is  in- 
creasing daily — I  almost  hesitate  to  go  down-town  to-morrow 
to  see  about  working  my  passage  home.  Pretty  certainly, 
the  number  of  others  desiring  the  same  opportunity  will 
be  large — disquietingly  large. 

Later. 

The  day  should  not  close  without  mention  of  Portsmouth's 
glory,  the  old  wooden  flagship.  Victory,  where  the  visitor 
can  see  the  spot  marked,  ''Here  Nelson  fell  at  Trafalgar," 
or  look  upon  the  tables  there,  on  one  of  the  lower  after- 
decks,  where  the  wounded  were  operated  on  with  only 
the  light  of  candles.  On  those  scarred  but  solid  decks, 
too,  you  can  learn  again  the  old  truth  that  desire  is  at  the 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    249 

bottom  of  our  doings,  as  when  Nelson,  given  orders  to  re- 
tire from  the  battle  of  Copenhagen,  put  the  telescope  to 
his  eye  and  reported,  "I  can  see  no  signal!"  and  kept  on 
until  the  fight  was  won.  He  had  been  looking  with  his 
blind  eye ! 

"I'd  like  to  see  America  and  Britain  stand  together  with 
never  more  a  word  of  jangle  between  us,"  said  the  Old 
Salt  who  rowed  us  out,  and  who  boasted  of  knowing  "every 
bloo-ody  seagull  in  the  'arbor  'ere  by  nime."  "Your  Presi- 
dent there  with  you,  wull,  'e  earns  'is  wiges,  'e  do.  But 
oors,  wull,  'e's  the  biggest  pauper  we  got,  ye  might  sye. 
'E  costs  us  four  million  poon'  a  year,  'e  do,  and  'e  eyen't 
worth  it.    Maybe  some  dye  we'll  'ave  a  President  'ere." 

Whitechapel,  London, 
Friday,  Sept.  10. 

Talk  about  living  a  dayful  of  the  double  life ! 

This  morning  passed  dismally  enough  for  the  motley, 
unshaved  crowd  of  us  sitting,  hour  after  hour,  in  the  sea- 
men's room  in  the  basement  of  the  American  Consulate, 
ready  to  spring  to  our  feet  the  moment  any  respectable- 
looking  stranger,  even  faintly  resembling  a  ship's  skipper, 
might  enter  the  room.  Many  of  the  men  have  been  here 
weeks  and  weeks,  spending  every  day  in  these  same  end- 
less hours  of  waiting,  some  of  them  being  boarded  at  near-by 
places  by  the  Consulate,  according  to  our  seamen's  law, 
until  a  return  ship  happens  along  to  offer  a  job  home.  A 
package  of  cigarettes  helped  wondrously  for  making  almost 
100  per  cent  of  acquaintance — in  fact,  so  much  prosperity 
seemed  to  give  to  one  or  two  of  the  worst  off  a  hope  that 
I  might  contribute  a  shilhng  or  sixpence  to  their  absolutely 
exhausted  finances.  Fortunately,  the  cleanliness  of  their 
morning  shave  contrasted  so  strongly  with  my  own  condi- 
tion that  a  proper  alibi  was  easy  for  me.  Certainly  few 
places  could  stage  discussions  of  a  more  world-wide  character. 


250  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Outside  of  the  usual  discussion  of  jobs,  nothing  appeared 
to  have  quite  so  universal  an  interest  as  the  discussion  of 
the  world's  seaports  and  their  opportunities  for  vice.  Cer- 
tainly, too,  every  one  tried  his  best  to  sidestep  the  low 
rating  given  by  the  crowd  to  the  man  with  the  fewest  ad- 
ventures along  this  line.  Nor  did  such  conversation  eUcit 
any  remonstrance  from  the  clerk  as  being  contrary  to  the 
numerous  signs  insisting  upon  "No  violent  language  or 
boisterous  conduct  permitted  in  the  room."  At  least  it 
was  something  of  a  satisfaction  to  hear  again  men  saying, 
"Well,  I'll  tell  the  world!"  "I  sure  do,"  or  "Some  party, 
believe  me!" 

Later  on,  down  on  the  docks,  a  stevedore  treated  me  as 
a  friend  as  he  brought  out  a  lot  of  onions  from  his  capa- 
cious pockets  to  add  to  the  bread  and  cheese  and  beer  and 
salt  that  made  our  humble — also  highly  dirty  and  sloppy — 
repast.  His  "Hi  got  'em  off  the  bloo-ody  lighter  we're 
unloadin'  'ere!"  recalled  my  earUer  friend  and  his  need  of 
telling  the  difference  between  the  pineapples  and  the 
plums  in  the  absence  of  "the  bleedin'  labels  eaten  off  by 
the  bloo-ody  rats." 

As  we  left  the  place  together  a  young  lady  with  exceed- 
ingly high  heels  came  mincing  by.  His  words  followed 
with  amazing  quickness  upon  the  report  of  his  eyes:  "Hi 
pities  the  bloody  bloke  that  marries  'er.  Hi  do!  All  she 
wants  is  ter  read  a  bleedin'  novel  all  the  bhnkin'  dye !" 

After  that — also  after  a  bath  and  a  shave — the  use  of 
the  telephone  made  possible  a  call  upon  one  of  the  coun- 
try's leading  scholars,  thinkers,  and  writers: 

"America,  it  seems  to  me,  is  remarkable  for  attaining  a 
quick  pre-eminence  in  this  or  that  subject,  but  in  a  rather 
spotty  way.  Since  my  first  visit  over  there,  twenty  years 
ago,  you  have  made  amazing  progress.  Indeed  you  have 
achieved  almost  pre-eminence  in  architecture,  painting,  and 
in  certain  fields  of  science.    But,  oddly  enough,  you  have 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    251 

not  yet  furnished  for  these  present  times  great  philosophers 
or  poets. 

"I  was  struck,  also,  by  finding  that  many  of  your  high 
school  boys,  as,  indeed,  some  of  your  college  seniors,  have 
still  no  idea  of  what  they  are  going  to  do — ^what  field  they 
will  enter.  Before  I  was  seven  I  began  to  absorb  the  idea 
that  I  was  to  go  in  for  the  intellectual  life.  My  brother  was 
apparently  judged  a  httle  less  quick  with  his  mind,  so  he 
was  at  a  similarly  early  age  practically  brought  up  for  the 
life  of  business.  Our  young  men  at  nineteen  are  probably 
two  years  older  than  yours.  On  the  other  hand,  you  have 
four  times  as  many  students  in  your  secondary  schools, 
and  eight  times  as  many  in  your  colleges  and  universities 
as  we,  although  your  population  is  only  twice  ours. 

"As  you  know,  our  civil  service  permits  intellectual 
workers  to  earn  a  living.  That  and  our  'Old  Gold' — the 
one  hundred  or  several  hundred  pounds  of  yearly  income 
inherited  from  some  old  inheritance  which  may  have  been 
in  the  family  for  generations.  This  permits  a  man  to  take 
a  place  in  a  government  ofiice  or  a  part-time  university 
appointment  at  a  salary  below  what  he  might  need,  and 
still  devote  considerable  time  to  the  following  of  his  real 
desires  along  his  own  particular  line.  The  trouble  just  now, 
however,  is  that  we  have  what  we  are  calHng  'the  new 
poor' — people  whose  bonds,  though  safe,  have  lessened  in 
real  value  through  the  lessened  value  of  the  pound.  The 
'new  rich'  have,  by  the  same  token,  come  in  with  the 
high  dividends  permitted  by  the  war.  Thus,  those  who 
went  in  for  security  are  finding  themselves  poor,  while 
those  who  took  risks  are  rich.  .  .  .  What  all  of  us  could 
wish  here  is  that  society  will  either  change  into  a  definite 
system  in  which  service  shall  be  the  aim  rather  than  profit, 
or  that  more  and  more  business  men  may  go  in,  as  they 
seem  to  me  to  be  going  in  there  in  America,  for  combining 
service  with  business,  and  with  moderate  profit." 


252  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Still  later  in  the  day  the  leader  of  one  of  the  most  con- 
servative organized  groups  of  employers  in  the  country 
made  the  astonishing  statement  that,  so  far  from  wishing 
that  the  unions  might  be  done  away  with,  as  an  American 
oflficial  in  a  corresponding  office  would  probably  have 
wished : 

"We  want  more  power — not  less — ^for  the  union  heads. 
Then  we  can  work  out  together  the  best  possible  agreements 
for  the  various  industries  and  be  sure  that  those  agreements 
will  be  kept,  without  so  much  troublesome  pressure  from 
the  union  members,  who  have  not  had  the  opportunity  to 
think  the  whole  thing  through.  It  is  unthinkable  that 
Britain  should  ever  go  back  to  an  industry  in  which  the 
individual  employer  competes  with  other  employers  of  the 
country,  each  fighting  out  with  his  own  workers  the  ques- 
tion of  wages,  hours,  conditions,  etc.  Stronger  unions  rather 
than  fewer  unions  is  what  British  industry  needs." 

Unfortunately  another  group  of  officials  of  an  employers' 
group,  dealing  with  the  representatives  of  one  group  of 
unions,  reported  continued  difficulty  with  members  of  the 
building-trades  unions.  In  one  case  this  had  resulted  in 
their  getting  important  pieces  of  work  done  by  union  offi- 
cials themselves,  who  worked  after  hours  secretly  and  at 
rates  considerably  below  the  union  terms.  It  was  one  of 
these  officials — of  the  Employers'  Association — who  ex- 
pressed the  feeling  so  generally  encountered  here,  namely  the 
feeling  of  the  advantage  of  security  given  the  government's 
civil-service  jobs  as  compared  with  the  ordinary  business 
job: 

''Of  course  it  was  a  quite  serious  decision,  you  know. 
But  in  spite  of  the  security  of  the  government  service,  and 
in  spite,  too,  of  the  rather  unusual  social  recognitions  which 
come  to  the  men  of  the  state  or  diplomatic  department  as 
compared  with  a  business  man,  earning  perhaps  three  times 
as  much,  still  I  left  it  after  a  number  of  years  and  took  a 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    253 

chance.  You  see,  that  meant  giving  up  my  pension  and 
all  the  career  my  place  ofifered.  With  my  education,  you 
see,  also,  I  was  able  to  take  the  senior  exam  instead  of  the 
junior  exam,  which  is  open  only  to  men  who  have  had 
comparatively  little  schooling  but  have  worked  up  from  the 
bottom." 

To-day's  telephoning  brought  forth  a  great  flood  of  mur- 
derous designs  upon  the  equipment,  and  also  some  answers 
from  other  sufferers  as  to  the  why  of  such  awful  equipment 
and  arrangements.  But  it  is  too  late  to  go  into  that  now, 
especially  in  view  of  the  need  of  being  on  hand  early  to 
begin  the  morning's  discussion  at  the  seamen's  room  of 
the  comparative  facilities  of  Buenos  Aires,  Singapore,  and 
Hamburg  for  dulling  the  edge  of  a  sailor's  lonesomeness. 

Sunday  night,  Sept.  12, 
Whitechapel,  London. 

A  short  ride  farther  east  into  Canning  Town  gave  an 
interesting  morning  with  London's  unionized  hghtermen, 
also  with  their  officials,  including,  best  of  all,  Mr.  Harry 
Gosling,  one  of  their  thoughtful  and  powerful  representatives 
in  the  Triple  AlUance.  Mr.  GosHng  has  evidently  been 
one  of  the  workers,  for  his  manner  is  very  much  that  of  his 
members,  most  of  whom  appeared  quite  steady  citizens  in 
their  Sunday  clothes.  His  seriousness  of  manner  made  any 
large  voice  or  strenuousness  of  action  unnecessary. 

Almost  every  word  spoken  by  him  or  his  associates  dis- 
closed again  how  thoroughly  the  immediate  conditions  of 
the  job  constitute  the  chief  compulsion  which  must  be  at- 
tended to  by  the  workers. 

"This  unemployment  question,  friends,  is  with  us  a 
question  not  so  much  of  the  existence  of  jobs.  It  is  more 
a  question  of  the  distribution  of  the  jobs  that  exist.  To-day 
men  are  coming  to  the  union  offices  by  scores  and  scores  in 
search  of  work — ^men  who  'ave  'ad  no  place  for  ten,  sixteen, 


254  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

and  twenty  weeks.  At  the  same  time  others — and  some  of 
you  chaps  'ere  to-day — are  working  overtime.  Gentlemen, 
let  the  man  in  you  tell  you  that's  not  right.  If  everybody, 
after  'is  six  turns,  we'll  say  three  days  and  three  nights, 
would  stop  and  give  these  others  a  chawnce,  then  all  would 
be  right.  Of  course,  I  know  that  the  reason  you  don't  do 
it  is  because  you're  not  keen  to  Cut  out  the  five  shillings  for 
the  overtime  for  yourselves  nor  to  save  that  penalty  to  the 
employers.  I  know,  too,  that  if  I  was  to  ask  you,  all  of 
you  who  'ave  'ad  more  than  six  turns  the  week  could  give 
willingly  to  buy  food  and  shoes  for  the  poor  chaps  with  no 
place.  But  still  you're  not  willing  to  let  them  'ave  your 
turn  in  the  line.  Eat,  men,  I  tell  you,  a  job  is  food — it's 
bread  and  shoes,  it's  respectability,  everything,  all  the  good 
things  you  know." 

His  every  word  spoke  to  me  of  a  sincerity  which  no  one 
could  be  dull  enough  to  doubt,  yet  one  or  two  there  were 
who  rose  to  ask:  "Is  it  true  that  the  honorable  secretary 
signs  agreements  with  our  employers  in  secret?" 

About  another  less  important  leader  a  near-by  member 
muttered  under  his  breath:  "Thot  mon  'e  tikes  all  the  work 
'e  can  get  all  around  the  clock — every  stitchin'  hour." 

'"Ow  about  these  'ere  boys  wot  comes  in  and  tikes  a 
mon's  job?  'Ow  about  it,  Mr.  Secretary?  I  guess  thot's 
right,  not  'arf ! "  called  another. 

Apparently  that  sixteen  "bob"  a  day,  with  special  over- 
time pay,  attracts  men  down  to  the  docks  in  very  serious 
numbers  the  first  moment  jobs  grow  scarce  in  any  part  of 
the  industrial  world.  Even  though  only  badgemen  are  sup- 
posed to  be  taken  on  by  the  foremen,  some  of  these,  even 
though  members  of  unions,  are  apparently  careless.  Mean- 
while the  nature  of  the  job  seems,  as  always,  to  have  suf- 
fered change  along  with  the  growth  of  the  lighters  or  barges 
and  the  whole  industry: 

"Time  was,  as  the  older  of  you  well  do  know,  w'en  a 


LIVING   THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    255 

barge  that  'eld  fifty  tons  was  big.  Wy  I've  seen  the  'ole 
firm  get  out  to  make  a  fuss  over  a  'undred  tonner!  And 
now  they're  three  'undred  tons  and  more — and  nobody 
troubles  except  the  small  crew  tryin'  to  'andle  'em.  In 
those  days,  too,  our  employers  knew  us  all,  and  we  them. 
Now  it's  a  company,  and  that  company  is,  perhaps,  the 
Great  Western  Railway.  And  the  Great  Western  Railway, 
they  say,  is  the  P  and  O  Steamship  Line.  And  that's  capi- 
talism, and  capitalism  'as  its  roots  and  its  stations  all  over 
the  world.  And  further,  men,  while  they  work  together 
we  working  men  work  by  ourselves,  everybody  tryin'  to  get 
all  the  work  'e  can.  We're  all  too  individualistic.  That's 
the  weakness  of  us  workers. 

"Now  it  is  those  combined  employers  that  threaten  our 
comrades,  the  miners.  They  want  to  first  break  them  down 
to  lower  levels  of  livin'.  Then  'twill  be  our  turn.  ...  Of 
course,  the  miners  are  producin'  less.  But  that's  because 
the  owners  are  workin'  the  worst  possible  seams  as  long  as 
the  government  'as  control.  To  'cip  them  we  must  stand 
together — just  as  you  saw  by  the  papers  we  did  in  all  the 
meetin's  there  at  Portsmouth  last  week.  Not  a  word  of 
dissent  was  there  in  the  papers.  Now  that  the  government's 
buyin'  up  all  the  papers,  we  can  get  practically  no  space 
for  explainin'  labor's  side  of  the  miner's  controversy." 

Altogether  such  words  spell  a  serious  situation  just  ahead. 
Yet  I  came  away  from  my  new  friends  feeling  sure  they 
could  be  trusted  to  show  much  reasonableness,  even  in  the 
most  trying  of  eventualities. 

At  noon  my  table  companion  at  a  greasy  East  End 
eating-place  showed  a  much  higher  head  of  steam — ^with 
less  assurance  of  similar  reasonableness  in  case  of  increased 
pressure: 

"'Fit  for  'eroes  to  live  in' — thot's  wot  they  told  us  afore 
we  was  let  out  from  the  bloo-ody  war !  Awnd  'ere's  me  out 
o'  work  fer  months  and  months.    Not  a  plice  in  the  'ole' 


256  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

bleedin*  country  fer  onto  ten  months! — ^me  thot  alius  had 
a  good  berth  and  money  in  me  pocket,  pre-war.  Awnd 
would  be  still  lookin'  but  fer  a  friend,  a  personal  friend,  y' 
understawnd?  thot  gives  me  a  bit  o'  work  now  and  then — 
with  me  arm  that  'as  two  elbows — 'ere!  see  w'ere  'twas 
broke  by  the  governor  on  the  tank's  engine  awnd  'ad  ter 
be  set  three  times. 

"I  tell  ye,  it's  the  government  thot's  at  the  bottom  of  it 
all — the  government  with  the  police,  the  police  thot's  alius 
tryin'  to  do  yer  dirt.  Fair  villains  they  are,  Ga  blime! 
It's  like  this:  'ere  ye  are  awnd  ye've  met  up  with  a  few 
friends,  y'  see?  Awnd  ye  'ave  a  drink  with  Jack  awnd 
then  ye  'ave  a  drink  with  Joe,  awnd  then  with  yerself,  o' 
course.  Yer  feeUn'  fit  again  and  'appy — more  like  a  bloody 
'ero  than  ye've  felt  before  fer  weeks,  y'  understawnd? — 
with  yer  'avin'  no  pHce  awnd  all.  Not  drunk,  mind  ye? 
It  tikes,  I'll  sye,  seven  bob  to  get  me  drunk.  Because,  as  I 
sees  it,  a  mon's  not  drunk  joost  becus  'e  staggers  a  bit — not 
till  'e's  'elpless — fair  'elpless  and  'opeless,  like,  y'  under- 
stawnd? Then  I'll  sye  'e's  drunk.  Some  folks  cawn  get 
drunk  on  a  few  'arf -pints  awnd  some  thinks  they's  drunk 
when  they  eyen't.  Well,  yer  steps  out  onto  the  street  and 
'ere's  a  bobby,  and  'e  syes  to  yer:  'Pass  along,  there,  Jack! 
Pass  along!'  Well,  ye  pass  along,  but  not  so  fast  as  the 
government  would  like,  so  'e  steps  on  yer  'eel.  Then  yer 
syes  somethin'  about  it  to  yer  government — thot's  the 
pohceman,  y'  understawnd  ?  '  'Ere ! '  yer  syes,  '  'Ere !  wot 
yer  doin',  eh?' — awnd  'e  locks  yer  oop.  Awnd  there  yer 
gets  three  months  "ard.'  I've  seen  it  dozens  and  dozens 
o' times!     ' Fit  f er 'eroes  to  live  in ! '    Not 'arf !" 

His  constant  reference  to  pints  of  beer  rather  than  drinks 
of  whiskey  is  in  Une  with  most  of  my  observations  to  date, 
namely  that  any  regime  of  "beer  and  light  wines"  would 
stop  far  short  of  solving  the  drink  problem  here,  whatever 
it  might  do  in  America.     As  a  matter  of  fact,  a  newly 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    257 

issued  government  report  states  that  of  1,505  persons 
charged  with  drunkenness,  45  per  cent  were  due  to  beer 
alone,  to  "spirits"  alone  42  per  cent,  and  to  both  together 
13  per  cent. 

As  we  came  out  into  the  street  crowd — it  included  some 
mildly  intoxicated  young  boys  and  girls  repeating  certain 
obscene  words  in  lieu  of  conversation — one  of  the  most 
disreputable  of  "mascuhne  hags"  yet  seen  was  being  told 
by  a  passer-by: 

"Dirty  Dick's  yer  name — or  bloo-ody  well  should  be" — 
only  to  receive  his  reply: 

"Well,  I'm  not  dirty-minded  like  yerself,  anyway,  yoii 

,"   for  two  moments  of  perfectly  unprintable 

epithet. 

This  evening  the  candles  inside  the  starched  lace  cur- 
tains of  most  of  the  district's  front  windows  disclosed  the 
celebration  of  the  Jewish  New  Year's  eve.  On  all  sides 
men  with  great  beards  and  long,  black,  alpaca  coats  betook 
themselves  in  reverend  and  solemn  manner  to  the  syna- 
gogue, while  others  filled  the  saloons,  among  them  a  large 
matronly  lady,  who  could  be  seen  from  the  street  to  stand 
treat  to  a  sizable  group,  of  which  a  new  daughter-in-law 
was  evidently  the  centre.  Three  or  four  well-dressed  and 
modest  young  Jewish  girls  of  fourteen  or  fifteen,  when 
politely  approached,  were  wUUng  to  give  their  interpreta- 
tions of  their  surroundings: 

"Not  one  in  a  hundred  of  the  Jewish  people  here  drink 
— like  the  Enghsh  do.  It's  terrible!"  one  of  them,  with 
the  face  and  eyes  of  a  poetess,  explained  as  a  woman  came 
along,  nursing  a  hungry  baby,  and  sat  down  wearily  on  the 
steps  of  the  pub,  jiggling  a  second  baby  nervously  as  she 
watched  the  door.  "But  I  think  it's  quite  plain  why  the 
Jews  live  such  fine  lives.  You  see  it's  because  every  good 
Jew  prays  to  Jehovah.  Every  day  and  every  morning 
every  good  Jew  prays,  and,  you  see,  that  gives  him  cour- 


258  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

age.  Without  courage  it  is  hard  to  live  well,  don't  you 
think?" 

A  few  minutes  later,  and  much  to  my  amazement,  they 
all  advised  me  as  one  interested  in  seeing  how  London's 
unfortunates  live: 

"Why  don't  you  visit  a  London  slum?" 

Still,  hardly  more  than  a  turn  around  the  comer  from 
them,  an  hour  or  so  later,  brought  me  upon  three  of  the 
most  dishevelled,  degraded,  and  depressing  wrecks  of 
womanhood  that  one  could  wish  never  to  behold.  Crum- 
pled up,  they  were  upon  the  low  stonework  of  a  church's 
iron  fence — with  heads  sunk  upon  their  chests  and  eyes 
shut  hard,  as  though  in  the  effort  to  shut  off  thought  of 
their  crumpled  lives.  Here,  too,  as  in  Glasgow,  amazement 
and  loathing  stepped  hard  upon  the  hopeful  heels  of  pity 
when,  before  I  was  past,  one  of  them  announced  herself  a 
member  of  the  most  ancient  of  trades: 

"For  all  their  fine  clothes  the  tarts  ye'll  find  in  Picadilly 
are  no  better!"  With  a  jerk  she  opened  the  most  dis- 
reputable of  greasy  great-coats  upon  the  filthiest  of  corsets ! 

Then  the  compulsion  of  somebody  else's  job  came  along 
to  rob  her  and  her  companions  of  the  fence's  scanty  com- 
forts. 

"Ye  see,  I've  got  to  keep  'em  movin'  off  the  main  streets," 
explained  the  pohceman.  "If  I  didn't  somebody  might 
come  along  and  find  'em  sleepin'  there,  or  mebbe  find  'em 
dead — ^mebbe  dead  for  hours,  as  they  'ave  been  found  be- 
fore this.  Then  it  would  be  me  before  the  captain  with  'im 
sayin':  'Oho,  so  you  wasn't  passin'  thot  way?  Off  yer 
beat,  was  ye?  Well,  thot'll  be  so  many  days  off  fer  ye!' 
So  there  ye  are!  In  a  cellar-way,  mebbe,  they'll  not  be 
so  easy  seen. 

"But  at  that  the  place  'as  much  improved  in  twenty 
year.  'Twas  right  over  there — ^where  ye're  lookin'  now — 
that  Jack  the  Ripper  did  some  of  his  jobs.  Good  night  to  ye." 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    259 

It  is  amazingly  easy  here,  I  must  say,  for  all  to  see  such 
awful  living  and  moving  pictures  of  the  dreadful  depths  to 
which  men  and  women  can  sink  when  they  lose  their  hold 
on  the  job.  Perhaps  that  is  one  cause  of  the  serious  words 
of  those  lightermen  and  stevedores  this  morning.  They 
trace  the  honor  of  their  profession  back  to  the  days  when — 
in  the  absence  of  the  modem  cranes — the  disposers  or 
placers  of  the  cargo  had  to  be  skilled  artisans,  and  they 
still  take  great  responsibility  for  their  huge  barges.  So  it 
is  not  strange,  I  suppose,  that  they  feel  that  the  status  to 
which  they  have  now  attained  must  be  guarded  by  eternal 
vigilance,  aided — ^unfortunately — by  that  alert  distrust  and 
suspicion  which  comes  from  fear  in  the  effort  at  self- 
preservation. 

At  any  rate  it  makes  a  fellow's  heart  heavy,  even  though 
that  heart  still  insists  that  at  all  these  levels,  high  or  low 
and  in  between,  men  and  women  seem  about  equally  hard 
on  the  job  of  trying  to  persuade  themselves  that,  somehow 
or  other,  life  is  worth  living,  and  that  the  next  turn  of  the 
wheel  will  bring  a  better  day. 

Monday,  Sept.  13th. 

A  package  of  American  cigarettes  did  wonders  this 
morning  as  a  maker  of  friends  in  the  seamen's  room. 

"Yes,  I'm  English  born,  and  I've  been  workin'  at  en- 
gineerin'.  But  'ere  you've  got  to  have  a  pedigree  before 
you  can  get  a  job.  So  I'm  tryin'  to  get  back  for  a  go  at 
salesmanship  in  the  States  again.  'Avin'  only  my  first 
papers,  God  knows  when  I'll  get  a  ship.  Last  week,  'ere, 
the  clerk  'anded  me  a  pen  to  sign  on.  Just  then  along  comes 
a  chap  that  wants  the  place,  and  because  'e's  a  full  Ameri- 
can and  I've  only  first  papers,  'e  gets  it.  That's  fair,  I 
suppose,  but  tough.  And  now  I'd  'ave  trouble  to  get  onto 
a  'lime-juice'  boat  (British)  because  of  those  same  first 
papers.  What  I  can  do  I  don't  know.  I've  only  three 
pounds  left!" 


260  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

"While  we  were  waiting  for  our  boat  out  there  on  the 
Baltic,"  said  a  bright-faced  young  sailor  of  Australian  birth, 
''the  Bolshevists  came  along  and  made  us  go  to  prison." 
With  that,  of  course,  we  all  gathered  'round.  His  voice 
and  manner  were  enough  to  convince  all  of  us  at  least 
of  the  truth  of  his  tale. 

''Days  and  days  we  were  cooped  up  in  a  house — nobody 
knew  what  for.  One  night  the  soldiers  came  into  the  room 
and  knocked  two  old  women  in  the  heads  with  their  mus- 
kets. So  we  all  went  out  with  the  soldiers — excepting  some 
of  the  best-looking  young  women.  They  cried  out  to  me 
to  help  them,  and  if  it  would  have  done  any  good  I'd  have 
laid  down  my  life,  I  swear  to  God.  But  what  could  I  do 
with  a  penknife  in  my  pocket?  For  weeks  we  all  had  to 
stay  with  hundreds  of  others  in  a  wire  barricade  in  one  of 
the  Russian  towns  out  in  the  country.  .  .  .  Soldiers?  I 
should  say  not !  Why,  they  tore  the  clothes  off  the  women 
and  made  pants  by  wrappin'  them  around  their  own  legs ! 
Anything  to  keep  warm !  I  gave  my  coat  to  a  young  woman, 
and  if  she  didn't  fall  right  down  and  kiss  my  feet !  I  took 
off  some  of  my  underclothes  for  a  baby,  and  I  swear  to  God 
the  mother  worshipped  me  for  days !  Women — taken  away 
from  their  families  and  husbands — were  all  the  time  having 
babies  there  right  out  in  the  open  air !  Of  course  they  all 
died,  and  we  buried  them.  If  only  some  of  the  Bolshie 
agitators  here  could  see  what  I  seen ! 

"Get  out?  Well,  we  couldn't  stay  there  and  die,  could 
we?  A  big  Swede — more  than  six  feet  tall  he  was — and 
strong! — well,  I'll  say  he  broke  twenty  big  stones  drivin'  a 
railway  spike  with  'em  through  a  short  heavy  piece  of  wood. 
And  all  the  time  he  was  chucklin'  or  swearin'  under  his 
breath — you  know  what  I  mean,  schemin'  his  plan.  There 
was  a  guard  on  each  side  of  the  square — ^just  like  this,  see? 
Well,  here  was  the  guard  just  outside.  My  Swede  friend, 
he  goes  up  and  talks  to  him  a  bit — ^with  his  spiked  stick 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    261 

under  his  coat.  Pretty  soon  he  calls  out  to  one  of  the 
brightest  of  the  girls — a  Finnish  girl,  she  was.  And  when 
the  guard  comes  up  close  to  the  fence  to  talk  to  her,  par- 
ticular like,  y'  understand? — the  Swede  he  pushes  his  arm 
out  quick  through  the  barbed  wire.  It  cut  him  somethin* 
terrible.  It  was  all  sore  for  days.  But  he  grabs  Mr.  Guard 
around  the  neck  and  pulls  him  over  to  him  with  his  arm — 
like  this,  see  ? — and  then  all  at  once  he  drives  this  spike — on 
that  short,  heavy  stick,  y'  understand? — right  into  his 
head.  I'll  bet  you  it  went  in  this  far — a  full  two  inches. 
Say,  I'll  never  forget  the  sound  of  it  crunchin'  through  the 
poor  devil's  skull  and  into  his  brains  if  I  live  to  be  ninety  I 
Well,  we  all  walked  out — the  five  of  us  in  the  scheme — ^and 
maybe  we  wasn't  happy  when  we  walked  to  Helsingf ors ! " 

It  made  a  big  impression,  but  everybody  had  his  mind 
too  much  on  his  own  troubles  to  forget  them  long. 

"On  the  beach  at  B.  A.  (Buenos  Aires)  I  vas,"  said  a 
fellow  citizen  bom  in  Germany.  "Only  two-t'ree  boats  a 
mont'  from  dere,  dey  vas.  Awful.  I  dink  I  starve  dere. 
New  York  I  vant  now." 

"Well,"  testified  another,  "I  was  in  the  hospital  here 
longer'n  that,  and  they  don't  give  a  man  no  food  worth 
mentionin'.  Yes,  I  had  the  old  stuff  bad,  all  right — and  so 
did  the  whole  ship's  crew  of  us — every  blinkin'  one.  But 
they  was  poor  devils  there  that  will  never  get  out  except 
they're  carried  out,  y'  understand  ?  And  those  that  do  get 
out — if  they  does — they'd  shoot  themselves  if  they  had  any 
sense.    Awful  they  was !    Awful ! 

"Yes,  I've  seen  vice  in  every  country,  from  the  Esquimaux 
to  the  New  Zealand  and  Australian  natives.  But  it  takes 
a  woman  of  Denmark  to  find  a  sailor  that's  lost  his  money 
and  sleepin'  on  a  park  bench,  maybe,  without  nothin'  in 
the  world,  and  take  him  to  her  room  and  give  him  food 
and  a  night's  lodging,  and  wash  his  clothes  for  him  and 
have  'em  all  dry  w'en  he  gets  up  in  the  mornin',  and  no 


262  FULL  UP  AND   FED   UP 

charge,  mind  ye.  I  calls  that  Christianity  even  if  she 
wasn't  wot  you'd  call  a  moral  woman.  .  .  .  I'm  forty-two 
years  old  now.  It's  only  two  years  since  I  began  to  dissi- 
pate, but,  believe  me,  I've  kept  it  goin'  ever  since." 

If  possible  at  all,  I'll  hope  to  see  if  he  has  as  definite  a 
reason  for  his  turning  to  the  left  at  forty  as  my  old  friend, 
the  repairer  in  the  South  Wales  mine,  had  for  his  turning  to 
the  right  at  the  same  mile-post. 

The  conversation  of  these  men  is  certainly  wonderful  for 
wearing  seven-league  boots.  In  every  three  sentences  they 
travel  down  to  the  depths  of  moral  degradation,  or  up  to 
the  heights  of  strong  men's  rugged  hopes  and  back — beside 
going  four  times  'round  the  world.  As  to  that,  I  did  pretty 
well  myself.  For  the  next  half-hour  sent  me  miles  and 
miles  in  terms  of  psychological  distance:  after  a  quick 
change  in  a  public  wash-room,  I  sat  down  to  lunch  with 
an  American  captain  of  commerce  whose  success  is  world- 
known. 

"Somehow  or  other,"  he  said,  ''fear  must  be  put  out  of 
men's  minds  as  the  chief  motive  to  get  them  to  work.  If 
we  could  do  that  then  the  whole  problem  of  industrial  rela- 
tions would  be  infinitely  simphfied.  But  employers  have 
little  right  to  try  to  lessen  the  power  of  the  unions  until  they 
themselves  can  agree  to  lessen  the  worker's  fear  and  the  need 
of  the  protection  which  the  unions  afford.  So  the  obstacle 
is  in  the  short-sighted  employers  as  much  as  in  the  short- 
sighted workers  and  leaders  of  workers." 

Still  later  a  labor  leader  of  international  fame  showed  that 
he  had  been  doing  some  thinking  about  the  newest  phases 
of  this  problem  of  jobs  as  between  the  various  peoples: 

"I  am  for  common  sense — not  Bolshevism.  I  want  to 
see  the  country  grow  up — not  blow  up.  Some  of  my  Italian 
Socialist  friends  say  to  me:  'England  should  give  us  its  coal 
— and  no  charge.  You  British  have  no  right  to  possess 
such  things  in  such  unfair  quantities.    No  nation  has. 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    263 

That  makes  the  enmity  and  war  in  the  world.  They  should 
all  be  pooled.'  I  tell  them:  'Will  you  pray  to  God  to  move 
our  coal  mountains  to  Italy,  or  will  you  have  me  persuade 
my  Welsh  friends  to  get  it  out  for  you  for  nothing?'" 

Then  he  gave  in  a  manner  helpful  to  long  remembrance, 
a  statement  of  this  whole  huge  complex  human  problem, 
which  has  been  caused,  after  all,  more  or  less  by  the  fixed- 
ness of  nature's  disposition  of  coal  and  ore,  wheat  land  and 
forest  or  desert,  rivers,  harbors,  or  precipices: 

"We  can  only  raise  enough  food  here  to  support  about 
seven  of  our  nearly  fifty  milUon  people.  In  order  to  get 
the  food  for  the  other  forty,  or  forty-three,  we  must  give — 
we  must  export — the  things  other  people  need  from  us. 
That's  mostly  coal.  If  we  can't  export  coal,  then  in  order 
to  get  both  jobs  and  food  for  those  other  milUons,  we  must 
export  our  last  resource — ^and  our  first  liabihty — our  himian 
flesh!" 

As  we  discussed  how  rapidly  labor  is  becoming  an  inter- 
national problem  just  because  the  human  flesh  of  the 
laborers  can,  if  neces^ry,  be  so  easily  transferred  from  one 
country  to  another — more  easily  than  the  mountains  and 
coal-mines — a  secretary  came  to  his  elbow  with  her:  "Please 
sign  this  letter  for  the  Continent,  sir,  for  the  evening 
Aero  Post!" 

Verily  these  be  thrilling  times ! 

Wednesday,  September  15. 

The  threatened  coal  strike  is  very  unpopular  in  the 
basement  of  the  American  Consulate.  The  shortage  of 
stocks  is  causing  many  American  boats  either  to  delay  their 
saihng  or  to  go  to  the  Continent  to  fill  their  bunkers.  So 
for  all  of  us  the  chances  look  poor  for  getting  home  via  the 
forecastle  route.  Daily  the  crowd  in  the  chairs  and  on 
the  window  ledges,  tables,  and  boxes  grows  more  discon- 


264  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

solate — ^and  more  and  more  anxious  to  talk  of  other  times 
and  climes: 

"Nobody  can't  make  no  fun  in  Hamburg — even  with 
feefty  marks  to  the  dollar  and  good  champagne  for  doUar- 
feefty.  We  bring  last  month  frozen  meat  cargo  from  South 
America.  Fellow  can't  talk — ^must  alia  time  joost  stand 
at  bar  for  get  droonk;  then  go  home  to  bed.  No  fun" — 
according  to  a  naturahzed  sailor  of  Belgian  birth. 

"A  cargo  of  champagne — that's  wot  we  had,"  in  the  words 
of  another.  "And  at  San  Francisco  we  was  sixt /-eight 
cases  short — ^with  bottles  all  over  the  boiler-room  that  took 
us  hours  throwin'  'em  out  onto  the  grates." 

"There  in  the  Bering  Sea  we  done  salmon-fishin'.  With 
a  little  yeast  and  some  squeezed  fruit  and  a  secret  still  we 
had  in  the  fo'c'stle,  everybody  wondered  how  was  we 
gettin'  so  fearful  stewed.  Finally  we  had  to  take  and 
distil  beans.  Say,  when  you  took  a  sip  o'  that  stuff,  you 
knew  you  had  a  drink ! 

"Why  should  a  man  bother  with  passports  and  such  rot 
— a,  man  who's  been  goin'  thirty  years  without  'em?"  His 
red  face,  gray  hair  and  oilskin  coat  certainly  looked  the 
part.  "I  tell  you  I  been  out  there  twenty  years  in  the 
Northwest  fishin'  and  sealin'  in  steamers  and  wind-jammers 
full  of  lumber,  and  here  two  years  on  a  tug  and  all.  Second 
mate's  ratin'  I  got,  I  tell  you.  And  now  they  want  a  pass- 
port!" 

"Why  can't  a  man  go  anywhere's  he  likes?"  said  a  tall, 
lean,  husky  fellow  with  an  evil  eye.  "I  tell  you  the  world 
was  made  for  folks,  and  not  for  governments.  It's  all  the 
same  everywhere.  We've  got  to  work  too  blinkin'  hard. 
Why  don't  we  learn  from  the  Hindus?  Out  there  it  takes 
ten  men  to  do  one  man's  work.  Then  everybody  would 
beg  us  to  take  a  job  everywhere.  Out  in  Australia  there's 
a  poUce-station  every  few  miles.  You've  got  to  keep 
movin',  but  you  do  get  the  eats  until  you  get  a  job." 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE   IN  LONDON    265 

"Well,"  said  another,  "'m  Denmark  there's  only  a  few 
million  workers,  but,  beUeve  me,  they  keep  everybody  else 
out — ^and  all  to  protect  their  jobs." 

To-day  when  a  fine-looking  ship's  captain  appeared,  the 
talk  stopped  instantly,  and  in  a  moment  everybody  was  on 
his  feet  crowding  around  him.  When  he  finally  took  on  a 
cook,  the  rest  of  us  stood  up,  drinking  in  every  word  and 
trying,  as  it  were,  to  absorb  the  virtue  of  the  ceremony 
vicariously,  like  a  lot  of  bridesmaids  at  a  wedding.  Every 
one  of  us  figuratively  licked  our  chops  at  the  bare  sight  of 
a  man  getting  a  job.  When  the  lucky  dog  was  finally 
signed  on,  the  skipper  gave  him  a  few  shilHngs  for  paying 
his  debts  and  reporting  on  board.  The  fellow's  last  words 
as  he  passed  out  from  us  proudly  with  our  congratulations 
gave  us  all  a  little  hope: 

"Well,  for  a  pound  here  a  fellow  can  get  pickled  to  the 
eyebrows.    I  wonder  what  I  can  do  with  this." 

So  maybe  the  captain  will  be  back  for  another  cook  to- 
morrow. 

After  going  about  the  district  for  a  long  time  in  search  of 
a  restaurant  which  matched  the  level  of  my  obvious  dis- 
respectability,  a  fairly  decent  one  had  finally  to  be  entered. 
At  sight  of  myself  in  the  glass,  wearing  an  amazingly  mean 
set  of  jaw  and  eye  in  the  midst  of  better-dressed  people,  it 
was  easy  to  recall  the  words  of  a  boy  the  other  day: 

"Of  course  I  gotta  stop  at  New  York  City  to  get  some 
clothes  before  I  want  my  folks  to  see  me." 

Also  easy  to  understand  how  meanness  of  visage  goes  so 
generally  with  meanness  of  vestments.  It  is  undoubtedly 
a  means  of  what  might  be  called  "spiritual  seK-protection." 
It  is  a  man's  way  of  saying:  "Of  course  all  you  guys  in  your 
good  clothes  think  you're  a  lot  better  than  me.  But  I 
tell  you,  it  ain't  so.  You  may  fool  yourselves  and  others, 
but  you  can't  fool  me."  That  declaration  requires  effort, 
and  the  effort  shows  in  the  lines  which  make  that  expres- 


266  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

sion.  I  wonder  if  this  same  running  up  the  flag  of  inde- 
pendent and  aggressive  self-beUef  under  trying  circumstances 
does  not  explain  much  the  same  look  upon  the  face  of  a 
young  woman  who  is  perfectly  well-dressed  but  whose 
conscience  brings  those  same  gnawings  of  doubt  which  are 
caused  by  such  clothes  as  mine. 

The  same  general  motive,  also,  I  am  sure,  is  behind  the 
generous  tip  by  means  of  which  I  unconsciously  tried  to 
impress  the  young  lady  with  my  innate  rightness  in  spite 
of  all  appearances.  It  is  also  pretty  surely  the  reason  why 
the  poor  so  generally  think  it  necessary  to  go  the  full  Umit 
in  the  matter  of,  say,  a  funeral.  Just  as  I  felt  this  noon, 
they  feel,  doubtless,  that  they  start  far  behind  the  Une  and 
that,  therefore,  they  must  make  a  real  splurge  which  leaves 
no  doubt  of  the  full  rightness  of  their  intentions. 

At  all  these  restaurants,  good  and  bad,  all  classes  of  men 
seem  to  spend  a  lot  of  time  talking  about  their  various 
wagers  on  this  horse  or  that.  A  daily  paper,  by  the  way, 
gives  the  opinion  of  a  judge  that: 

"Betting  is  particularly  rife  in  congested  industrial  com- 
munities such  as .    The  streets  are  infested  by  betting 

touts  and  agents  abound  in  the  workshops.  Daily,  thou- 
sands of  bets  are  made,  and  thousands  of  pounds  wagered. 
No  class  or  section  of  the  community  is  free  from  indul- 
gence in  it.  .  .  .  The  presence  of  bookmakers'  agents  in 
the  workshops  is  a  matter  which  has  long  been  the  subject 
of  bitter  complaint  by  the  leading  employers  of  the  town. 
Not  only  is  time  wasted  by  the  men  in  discussing  betting 
chances  among  themselves,  and  in  making  bets  with  these 
agents,  but  the  whole  system  is  productive  of  slackness: 
frequently  the  foremen  are  incUned  to  wink  at  what  is 
going  on,  as  they  themselves  are  doing  a  bit  of  wagering. 
Betting  on  football  results  is  carried  on  on  a  large  scale, 
and  although  the  law  has  now  made  coupons  illegal,  that 
form  of  speculation  is  now  going  on  in  a  different  fonn. 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    267 

The  printed  coupon  cannot  be  distributed  but  a  'coupon' 
can  be  written  out  and  sent  to  the  proper  quarter." 

Around  the  noon-hour,  too,  the  competition  for  the  very 
scarce  public  'phones  is  largely  caused  by  the  placing  of 
wagers. 

Which  reminds  me  of  recent  listenings  as  to  the  trouble 
there.  It  appears  that  the  government  has  lost  on  the  last 
fiscal  year,  almost  exactly  the  four  million  pounds  which 
the  'phones  were  making  for  their  private  owners  when 
taken  over  a  few  years  ago.  General  testimony  is  that 
little,  if  any,  new  equipment  has  been  put  in,  and  one  inform- 
ant says  that  the  government's  first  step  was  to  dismiss  al- 
most all  the  technical  experts  drawing  more  than  800  pounds 
a  year.  Every  village  and  city  postmaster  is,  accordingly, 
the  man  of  last  authority  over  an  enterprise  which  requires 
a  huge  amount  of  scientific  knowledge  and  oversight  for 
its  efl&cient  maintenance  and  development. 

This  is  in  line  with  what  appears  a  quite  general  lack 
here  of  respect  for  the  technician  and  scientist.  As  a  tele- 
phone exchange  grows  in  size,  the  cost  of  handling  each  in- 
dividual call  increases  instead  of  decreases.  This,  accord- 
ingly, requires  a  constantly  increasing  charge  on  patrons 
unless  it  can  be  offset  by  increasingly  scientific  short  cuts 
and  arrangements.  These  are  hardly  favored  by  the  post- 
master's training,  by  the  certainty  of  the  postmaster's  life 
job  as  a  civil  servant,  or  by  the  general  absence  of  the 
usual  motive  of  financial  profit.  Whatever  the  cause, 
business  men  here  certainly  lack  one  of  the  faciUties  enjoyed 
by  their  American  competitors.  I  understand  that  there 
are  two  'phones  per  one  hundred  of  population  here  as 
against  twelve  in  the  States.  The  strange  thing  is  that 
while  the  business  man  here  apparently  accepts  such  handi- 
caps so  calmly,  he  is  quick  to  see  the  thrust  of  competition 
when  a  big  order  of  coal  or  machinery  fails  to  be  captured 
by  British  mills — ^as  in  the  case  of  a  big  electric  plant  re- 


268  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

cently  ordered  from  Berlin  by  one  of  the  large  cities  of 
Wales. 

Called  this  afternoon  on  Robert  Williams  of  the  National 
Transport  Union.  Unlike  the  docker's  union  official  of 
last  week  at  Portsmouth,  he  is  unwilhng  to  admit  that  the 
irregularity  or  other  conditions  of  the  docker's  job  have  any 
particular  influence  on  their  view-points:  "When  tempta- 
tion and  opportunity  jibe,  then  a  man  falls — that's  all  there 
is  to  it." 

He  completely  sidesteps  all  thought  that  the  leaders 
should  work  to  regularize  the  living  of  their  members  by 
working  to  regularize  their  jobs:  "You  see,  they  all  like  to 
work  when  they  like  to — ^and  there  you  are !" 

After  we  had  got  into  a  dispute  about  Marxianism  and  I 
had  backed  out  in  order  to  avoid  unpleasant  compUcations, 
he  gave  a  very  good  statement  of  the  union  official's  respon- 
sibility as  a  spear-head  rather  than  a  projector: 

"We  leaders  are  but  the  puppets  of  the  pressure  from 
beneath.  That  pressure  depends  upon  our  members'  mood. 
That  mood — that  temper — in  turn,  changes  from  month 
to  month,  and  season  to  season,  according  to  the  pressure 
of  circumstances  upon  them  at  the  time — ^like  the  high  cost 
of  hving,  possible  war  with  Russia,  etc.,  etc." 

It  was  well  this  came  as  soon  as  it  did,  else  I  should  have 
lost  it;  for  when,  a  moment  later,  I  asked  whether  he  did 
not  think  that  this  pressure  might  be  disastrous  unless  the 
leaders  thought  more  about  the  worker's  education,  he 
gave  me  an  unpleasant  look,  said  something  very  pointed 
about  the  "wrong  pew,"  and  got  up — ^and  I  shrugged  my 
shoulders  and  walked  out. 

He  is  one  of  the  recent  labor  visitors  to  Russia  who  came 
back  completely  convinced  of  the  success  of  Bolshevism. 
Some  of  his  friends  say  that  while  he  is  very  revolutionary 
in  his  spoken  views,  he  is  quite  cool  and  conservative  when 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    269 

it  comes  actually  to  taking  the  radical  step.  It  is  easy  to 
see  that  if  he  wishes  to  continue  as  a  radical  leader,  he  must 
have  the  backing  of  a  radical  membership.  In  that  case 
the  last  thing  he  ought  to  do  would  be  to  work  toward  regu- 
larizing that  membership's  jobs.  For  that  would  hardly 
fail  to  make  his  members  less  radical — ^and  then  they'd 
"give  him  the  sack." 

"Governesses'  Benevolent  Institution"  was  the  name  of 
an  unusual  association,  or  union,  noted  shortly  after.  Near 
it  was  a  sign  of  the  "Adult  and  Juvenile  Funeral  Society" 
— doubtless  for  making  sure  that  a  person's  last  public 
appearance  is  accomplished  with  due  respect  and  ceremony. 

"I  have  lost  five  months  of  work  looking  for  a  house,"  a 
woman  testified  at  the  Marylebone  court  yesterday.  The 
cause  is  evidently  the  same  absence  of  building  during  the 
war  as  makes  trouble  at  home.  The  sale  of  municipal  bonds 
for  furthering  the  erection  of  homes  throughout  the  coun- 
try appears  to  go  slowly. 

Daily  the  certainty  of  the  coal  strike,  set  now  for  Sep- 
tember 22,  grows  greater.  The  lack  of  coal  has  already 
caused  so  many  empty  bottoms  that  the  freight  rate  on 
bacon  and  other  incoming  foods  has  had  to  be  raised. 
This,  with  the  lowered  value  of  the  pound  resulting  from 
lessened  exports,  is  raising  prices  and  making  serious  com- 
plications generally.  Orders  for  American  automobiles  are 
being  cancelled  right  and  left:  the  exchange  makes  them 
entirely  too  expensive.  Evidently  our  friends  over  in 
Detroit  and  Cleveland  are  going  to  pay  the  price  of  the  un- 
happiness  of  my  "buddies"  there  in  the  South  Wales  coal- 
mines and  ports.  So  it  looks  as  though,  whether  they  are 
conscious  of  it  or  not,  the  laborers  of  the  world — also  the 
capitalists — depend  for  their  bread  and  butter — or  jam  and 
cake — ^upon  the  well-being  of  not  only  their  fellow  laborers, 
but  also  their  fellow  capitalists  all  over  the  world. 


270  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Thursday  afternoon, 
September  16th. 

"The  bloo-ody  rine  (rain)  don't  mike  no  difference  to 
the  bleedin'  gulls,  do  it?"  said  a  husky  worker,  waiting  in 
the  line  to  carry  the  empty  fish  boxes  back  to  the  waiting 
lighters  there  at  Billingsgate  early  this  morning. 

Apparently  the  laborers  come  here  from  all  over  London. 
Many  of  them  have  lurid  tattoo  marks  on  their  husky  arms, 
others  wear  the  coat  of  an  old  soldier,  or  perhaps  the  sweat- 
rag  of  the  fireman,  with,  occasionally,  a  smashed-in  derby 
or  dicer  in  memory  of  better  days.  Most  of  the  carriers 
wear  a  huge  hat  heavily  padded,  nevertheless  the  strain  on 
the  neck  and  shoulders  must  be  great  enough  when  a  fellow 
starts  off  with  a  box  weighing  150  pounds  or  so,  which  it 
has  taken  two  men  to  lift  up  onto  his  crown.  The  place  is 
surely  a  Uvely  combination  of  the  aroma  of  steaming  crabs 
or  lobsters,  sloppy  floor,  dripping  oilskins,  sweating  work- 
ers and  yelling  salesmen: 

'"Ere  you  are,  sir!  Sixpence  the  pound!  Right  'ere!" 
' '  Wot  cheer,  there.  Bill  ?  "  ' '  Gangway !  Gangway,  please ! ' ' 
— with  perhaps  a  "Thank  you!"  as  you  turn  to  find  a  man 
about  ready  to  throw  his  box  of  fish  at  your  feet. 

Before  the  middle  of  the  morning  it  is  almost  as  quiet  as 
the  old  church  next  door.  In  the  effort  to  secure  that  empty 
bunk  in  the  forecastle,  I  followed  the  advice  of  the  clerk  in 
the  seamen's  room  to  visit  the  American  boats  in  the  harbor, 
away  down  the  river.  But  with  them  all  coal  appears  too 
important  and  time  too  unimportant: 

"Well,  we  shan't  be  in  Hamburg  more  than  a  month — 
that  is,  if  we  don't  bunker  there.  But  if  the  strike  comes 
on,  we'll  have  to,"  was  the  testimony  gained  on  board  a 
big  merchantman,  full  of  lumber  from  Scandinavia  and  the 
Baltic. 

"D — d  slim,  I'd  say,"  said  the  chief  engineer  of  another 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    271 

big  freighter,  when  asked  about  the  chance  of  getting  back 
to  God's  country.  ''Two  weeks  from  now  at  least  before 
we  sail  for  home  via  Holland." 

"Nine  months  we've  been  out  of  San  Francisco — ^with 
lumber  to  South  America,  and  then  frozen  meat  from  there," 
said  a  group  of  four  clean-cut  but  homesick  American  boys 
in  a  very  decent-looking  ''fo'c'sle."  "That's  too  long  with- 
out a  sight  of  home.  Thank  God,  we're  paid  off  to-night. 
.  .  .  Yes,  there's  bedbugs  all  over  the  place  now,  though 
we've  worked  hard  to  stop  'em.  But  they  give  us  pretty 
good  food,  and  these  quarters  aren't  bad.  Hot  and  cold 
water  you'll  find  in  the  showers  across  there,  with  clean 
towels  and  everything." 

Everybody  on  all  the  boats  to-day,  and  at  the  seamen's 
room  all  week,  is  sure  that  the  American  sailor  now  enjoys 
the  best  conditions  of  any  in  the  world.  The  difficulty 
seems  to  be  that  with  jobs  ordinarily  so  plentiful  in  America, 
the  months  away  from  home  appear  to  spell  the  height  of 
unhappiness  and  dislocated  living. 

Alongside  these  boys  were  Norwegians,  who  have  been 
away  from  home  uninterruptedly  for  seven  years,  without 
apparently  minding  it  in  the  least.  "Gotta  make  a  Uvin' 
somehow,  don't  you?"  one  of  them  put  it  after  he  had 
told  of  keeping  in  fairly  close  touch  with  his  friends, 
from  one  of  whom  he'd  had  a  nice  long  letter — six  years 
ago! 

On  the  way  back  into  the  city  a  negro  told  of  his  birth 
in  French  territory  on  the  African  Coast,  and  of  his  last 
seven  years  and  British  citizenship  in  the  British  army: 

"My  friend  in  jail" — business  of  thumb  to  mouth  with 
head  thrown  back  to  indicate  the  reason.  "Fined  seven 
shillings,  sixpence.  I  go  up  to  pay  and  get  him  out.  Cana- 
dian he  is.  Know  him  only  one  week,  but  he  speak  to  me 
nice  language — friendly,  you  know?  .  .  .    W'iskey  is  bad 


272  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

for  poor  man.  .  .  .  But  me,  I  drink  four  w'iskies  and  no 
get  drunk.     Get  out  here.     Good-by." 

Later  an  electrician  got  into  the  compartment: 

"  There's  a  big  difference,  I  tell  you,  out  there  in  America — 
I  mean  Canada.  You  go  right  up  to  a  foreman  and  talk 
to  'im  like  Tom,  Dick,  or  Harry.  0'  course,  you  know 
'e's  a  foreman,  and  you  respects  'im,  but  there's  none  of 
this  'ere  clawss  idea. 

"And  when  they  puts  in  machinery,  they  don't  let  it 
wear  itself  out  like  of  old  age — you  know  what  I  mean? 
They  expects  to  ride  with  the  times  and  scrap  it  when  a 
better  one  comes  along.  'Ere  they  use  it  till  it's  worn  out. 
I've  seen  it  many  times  as  old  as  the  factory.  Old,  they 
are,  and  slow — and  dangerous.  ...  I  came  back  from  there 
durin'  '15.  Slack  work  there  was  out  there,  and  all  closed 
down  like  a  drum.  They  refused  me  in  the  army  here. 
For  why?     I  don't  know. 

"Anyway,  our  union — the  Electrical  Trades,  it  is — 'as 
progressed  by  leaps  and  bounds.  The  leaders  are  playing 
big  right  now.  They're  going  to  make  us  the  key  industry, 
though  the  mawsters  are  plain  nawsty,  with  the  lock-out 
and  all,  up  North.  There's  points  on  both  sides,  and  that's 
part  of  the  inquiry  they're  going  to  make.  The  govern- 
ment's too  wise  to  set  its  'ead  against  us  right  now." 

"Fed  up !  I  don't  care  a  rap  what  happens  now.  Coal 
strike  or  not — ^what's  the  use?"  This  was  the  wail  of  a 
fairly  prosperous-looking  passenger  at  a  station  where  a 
change  had  to  be  made.  "J.  H.  Thomas,  it  looks  like  to 
me,  is  on  both  sides — runs  with  the  hares  and  hunts  with 
the  hounds.  Smillie  wants  nothing  but  Bolshevism.  I 
have  a  friend  just  back  from  Russia.  He  says  it's  awful. 
Conscripting  labor  and  no  two  laborers  from  the  same  town 
allowed  together  in  the  same  gang  so  that  'townies'  can't 
get  together  and  get  their  wind  up."     (Make  trouble.) 

At  any  rate  the  experience  of  ten  or  fifteen  days'  work  on 


LIVING  THE  DOUBLE  LIFE  IN  LONDON    273 

the  ocean  home  is  apparently  to  be  denied — for  longer 
waiting  is  impossible.  At  that,  I  guess  I  can  get  along 
with  having  done  it  twice  in  college  days — though,  of  course, 
the  cattle  puncher's  work  is  dififerent  from  the  deck-hand's 
or  the  oiler's  job  that  I've  been  hoping  for. 

Later. — The  hoped-for  ship  seems  to  have  come  at  last! 
have  just  learned  by  'phone  that  an  American  skipper  is 
there  at  this  moment  taking  on  a  full  crew  for  an  immediate 
start  for  New  York !  So  here  goes  to  taste  again  the  joys 
of  the  fo'c'sle.  Here's  hoping  that  all  the  stories  and  sights 
of  this  morning  are  correct  in  painting  huge  improvement 
in  the  life  on  the  bounding  main  over  that  of  twenty  years 
ago. 

Friday,  September  17th. 

For  a  moment  yesterday  afternoon  it  looked  as  though 
everything  was  all  set  for  departure  Saturday  on  board  a 
big  freighter.  Everybody  in  the  seamen's  room  was  smiUng 
the  proud  smile  of  self-respecting  holders  of  real  jobs  by 
the  time  I  got  there. 

"Oiler,  messman,  or  deck-hand,"  was  the  catalogue  I 
gave  of  my  seafaring  abihties  when  the  skipper  asked  if  I 
was  a  full-fledged  American  and  had  had  experience. 

"All  right,  we'll  take  you  on  as  an  oiler.  Got  your  pass- 
port? Well,  bring  it  here  to-morrow  morning  at  nine  all 
ready  to  sign  on.    We  sail  Saturday  at  ten." 

All  the  way  between  him  and  the  door  I  was  seeing  my- 
self in  the  hot  engine-room,  listening  to  the  hopes  and  fears 
of  my  fellow  workers  in  between  the  throbs  of  the  big  en- 
gine of  the  great  boat  through  all  the  hours  of  the  next 
fifteen  days — or  would  it  be  fifteen,  or  only  ten,  or  maybe 
even  twenty? 

"New  York?'*  said  the  skipper  when  I  went  back  to 
ask  him.    "Why,  we  get  to  New  York  quite  shortly. 


274  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

First  we  go  to  Antwerp  and  then  to  New  York — via  South 
America!" 

And  to  think  that  if  I  had  signed  on  and  then  had  failed 
to  turn  up  this  morning,  I  could  have  been  arrested  and 
sent  to  jail  as  a  deserter ! 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE  WORST  JOB  YET 

Friday,  September  24th, 
On  board  S.S.  Mauretania. 

The  chief  event  of  this  luxurious  passage  home  has  been 
the  suddenness  of  the  shift  of  my  psychological  gears  from 
high  to  low — ^and  reverse — ^yesterday  afternoon.  As  a  matter 
of  fact,  it  came  mighty  close  to  "stripping"  them. 

One-thirty  saw  me  enjoying  all  the  gastronomical  mag- 
nificence of  Mrs.  Mauretania's  French  chef — good  luck  and 
friends  got  me  on  board  here  in  spite  of  trjdng  for  my 
first-cabin  ticket  only  one  day  before  sailing.  Two  o'clock 
found  me  in  old  pants  and  shirt  and  sweat-rag,  shovel  in 
hand,  taking  lessons  in  the  strenuous  art  of  stoking.  Talk 
about  high  dives !  That  was  the  tallest  and  quickest  dive 
from  tip-top  luxury  to  bottom-scraping  hard  labor  my 
imagination  can  picture ! 

Strenuous  and  bottom-scraping — these  surely  are  the 
words !  I  never  knew  that  even  half  an  hour  could  be  so 
tragically  long,  nor  the  three-minute  interval  of  the  gaffer's 
shovel  on  the  ship's  steel  bottom  so  disastrously  short! 
The  first  bangety-bang  of  that  shovel  makes  you  jump  to 
shut  off  the  drafts  and  swing  open  the  great  door  of  the 
first — and  highest — of  the  three  cavernous  furnaces  assigned 
you.  With  the  light  of  the  roaring  holocaust  burning  out 
your  eyes  and  scorching  your  forearms,  you  catch  up  your 
shovel  and  throw  pounds  and  pounds  from  the  floor  at 
your  feet  into  the  flames  until  you  have  filled  up  the  entire 
opening.  ''Let  'em  slide  off-like,  for'rd — there,  like  that!" 
Then  quick !  you  drive  the  great  poker  into  the  mass  near 
the  grates  and  lift  it  carefully  so  as  to  help  the  air  through. 

275 


276  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Quick  again — for  every  instant  of  open  doors  means  cold 
air  for  the  cooling  of  the  water  and  the  lessening  of  the 
precious  steam — quick,  to  close  doors  and  turn  on  blasts, 
and  then  on  to  feed  the  burning  hunger — and  feel  the  fear- 
ful heat — of  fire  number  two.  At  last  it  is  fed,  closed,  and 
given  the  draft — ^but  your  heart  sinks  as  the  gafifer's  shovel 
bangs  it  into  you  that  you  are  losing  time !  You  double  your 
speed  on  number  three  and  with  that  done  you  hurry  to 
open  number  one  again.  With  your  long,  heavy  rake  you 
put  all  the  strength  of  your  shoulders  and  front  trunk  into 
the  work  of  pushing  the  coals  back  toward  the  far  end  of 
the  bed.  Now  you're  about  even  with  your  job.  A  short 
pause,  a  quick  catching  of  your  breath,  a  dry  spitting  out 
of  cotton-like  coal-dust,  the  glimpsing  of  the  whites  of 
black-rimmed  eyes  and  of  shining  sweat  streams  down  the 
blackened  faces  of  your  fellows  moving  through  the  dust- 
filled  darkness,  and  then  again  the  bangety-bang  of  the 
gafifer's  signal.  Again  the  heat  on  eyes  and  face  and  arms, 
and  again  the  shovel,  remembering  to  use  your  back-swing 
to  give  it  distance,  and  then  to  let  it  slide  off  "easy-like," 
without  pushing  the  shovel  too  high. 

"Alius  keep  'er  pushed  back,  with  a  good  body — about 
four  inches  from  the  top — that's  wot  gets  us  into  port. 
There,  she's  just  right,"  your  buddy  yells  into  your  ear 
above  the  noise. 

"Come  on,  now — ^wot's  the  idea?  A  little  more  sweat 
there  now  on  the  rake,"  calls  the  gaffer  to  a  group  of  black, 
sweat-striped  backs. 

"Gangway!  Gangway!"  shouts  the  trimmer  as  he 
emerges  from  the  dusty  blackness  of  the  bunkers. 

"  Clangety-clang ! "  summons  the  gaffer's  signal. 

"More  coal!"  roars  out  of  the  open  door  of  fire  number 
two. 

"Wha-n-g!"  whines  your  shovel  on  the  ship's  steel  floor 
before  it  gets  its  load. 


THE  WORST  JOB  YET  277 

After  hardly  an  hour  of  such  muscular  effort  as  I  think 
I  never  experienced  before  I  was  almost  finished. 

Shortly  the  fire  had  to  be  "drawn."  That  meant  getting 
the  hot  coals  all  to  one  side,  then  raking  down  to  the  front 
the  huge  clinkers;  some  of  them  were  bigger  than  the  door 
and  so  had  to  be  broken  with  the  poker.  With  one  foot 
upon  the  pile  of  hot  clinkers  already  fallen  on  the  floor, 
you  put  your  whole  back  and  body  into  bringing  the  others 
down  to  the  mouth  after  you  have  swung  the  great  rake 
as  far  back  as  it  will  go.  Then  you  spread  your  fire  over 
the  grates,  and  then  again  more  coal.  Later  the  ashes,  still 
hot  at  your  feet,  must  be  shovelled  into  the  mechanical 
ejector,  for  carrying  to  the  boat's  side  and  out  into  the 
water. 

It  was  a  shameful  moment  when  finally  I  had  to  ask  for 
transfer  to  the  trinuner's  job  for  fear  that  my  first  week 
on  shore  would  be  in  bed.  The  difference  is  hardly  as  great 
as  might  be  wished.  Somehow  or  other  the  heavy  wheel- 
barrow has  to  be  got  into  the  narrow  place  where  the  curved 
ribs  and  side  of  the  boat  make  awkward  pockets  in  which 
the  shovelling  of  coal  is  extremely  difficult.  You  can 
scarcely  see  your  buddy  a  few  feet  away  for  the  black  dust. 
Then  the  iron  barrow  must  be  pushed  out  onto  the  floor 
of  the  fire-room.  With  a  run  and  a  yell  you  use  your  skill 
to  overend  the  heavy  load  at  precisely  the  right  spot  for 
the  fireman  to  find  his  pile. 

On  either  job  there  is  a  good  deal  of  air  from  the  venti- 
lators if  you  stand  exactly  at  the  right  place  beneath  the 
ventilators.  But  elsewhere — especially  before  the  open 
doors  or  near  the  hot  ashes — phew ! 

"If  ye  find  it  'ot  'ere  ye  should  come  with  me  of  a  nice 
summer's  dye  down  to  the  Red  Sea,  where  there's  never  a 
breath  of  a  breeze.  Twenty-eight  year  I've  'ad  of  this, 
and  I'm  tellin'  ye,  this  is  the  coolest  and  comfortablest  yet ! 
Twenty-eight  year  and  seven  times  over  the  seven  seas  and 


278  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

all!  Only  once  on  an  oil-burner — ^with  a  'ard  time  tryin' 
to  keep  awake." 

The  most  comfortable  sensation  enjoyed  in  years  came 
from  the  cool  air  of  the  deck,  after  what  seemed  miles  of 
ladders  to  the  showers  of  the  second  cabin,  before  daring 
to  show  my  face  back  in  the  first  cabin.  Bmns  of  arms  and 
face  and  hands,  also  of  the  foot  which  got  against  the  huge 
poker  on  the  floor,  will  keep  me  in  remembrance  of  the  after- 
noon for  quite  some  time — to  say  nothing  of  dead-tired 
muscles  all  over  my  body.  Luckily,  the  labor  did  not  bring 
"the  bends."  These  are  the  bane  of  the  fireman's  life. 
When  their  sudden  knotting  of  the  muscles  across  the 
stomach  follows  suddenly  on  that  back-breaking  pull-down 
upon  the  rake,  men  are  said  to  fall  and  writhe  in  agony  on 
the  floor,  insensible  to  the  lesser  pains  of  all  the  biuns  in- 
flicted by  the  red-hot  ashes. 

To-day  I  hardly  knew  whether  to  feel  glad  or  mad  as 
the  result  of  my  further  study  of  this  worst  of  jobs.  Back 
among  the  stokers  I  inquired  this  afternoon  how  they  can 
stand  such  fierce  exertion,  even  for  the  four  hours  on  and 
the  eight  hours  off.    Here's  the  answer: 

"Wull,  if  a  mon  goes  along  with  the  gang,  as  'e  should, 
*e  cawn't  lawst.  What  yer  do  is  ter  do  number  one  fire 
with  yer  coal  and  all.  Then  yer  opens  up  number  two, 
like  this,  ye  see?  There  ye  are,  ready,  like.  Then  yer 
tikes  a  look  to  see  if  the  gaffer's  lookin'.  Like  as  not  'e 
eyen't.  Then  yer  close  up  number  two  door  and  thot's 
done !  Then  yer  opens  up  number  three  and  if  Mr.  Gaf- 
fer's not  lookin',  yer  slams  'er  shut  and  turns  on  the  air 
'ard,  like,  and  then  yer  through — ^awnd  witin'  on  the  lead- 
er's shovel.  Course  yesterday  yer  couldn't  do  thot  'cause 
yer  mon  was  the  only  one  of  the  boat  as  tikes  'is  three  fires 
regular  like.  The  best  fireman  on  the  boat,  'e  is,  we'll  all 
sye,  though  'e  eyen't  'ad  a  sober  dye  on  land  in  twenty 
year. 


THE  WORST  JOB  YET  279 

"Wull,  o*  course  we  trimmers,  wuU,  our  job  would  be  bad 
— lookin'  after  six  firemen — if  it  wasn't  that  they  eyen't 
goin'  through  full,  like  'e  syes  to  yer.  Then,  too,  if  they 
'as  British  coal  it's  bad,  but  on  Yankee  coal — thot's  better 
— that  is,  better  for  us,  y'  understawnd? — because  the 
bloo-ody  stuff's  got  dirt  in  it — it  won't  burn,  so  it  lawsts 
longer  I 

"Yes,  on  American  boats  they're  'found'  in  towels  and 
soap  with  bed-linen  weekly,  with  shower-baths  and  good 
food.  'Ere  yer  furnishes  yer  own  soap  and  towels,  and  knife 
and  fork,  and  so  on — ^a  steward  'as  just  swiped  an  outfit 
for  me  from  the  third  class — ^mine  bein'  missin',  y'  under- 
stawnd? Worst  of  all,  yer  fights  'ere  for  yer  food.  They 
brings  it  on  in  one  big  dish,  y'  see,  and  the  best  getter  gets 
it.  Yer  gets  a  big  fine,  too,  for  bringin'  booze  on  board — 
or  a  knife  or  a  pistol.  And  yer  gets  two  days  off  and  five 
bob  for  talkin'  back  to  an  engineer,  to  say  nothin'  of  twenty 
pounds  and  two  or  three  months  for  jumpin'  a  boat  before 
the  voyage  is  ended — and  ye're  caught  the  minute  ye  gets 
back  on  the  next  trip,  and  yer  can't  get  onto  another  boat 
without  yer  book  givin'  the  years  of  yer  service  and  all. 
And  yer  can't  get  that  from  yer  company  except  when  yer 
gets  back  from  yer  trip.  So  how  to  get  onto  another  job 
in  any  other  country,  I  don't  know." 

Among  them  was  a  chap  whose  hand  was  the  most  awful 
collection  of  bums,  blisters,  and  yellow  sores  my  eyes  have 
ever  seen.  Ever  since  the  dreadful  sight  my  own  hand 
has  been  all  but  twitching  and  my  shoulders  contracting 
at  the  memory  of  it.  That's  because  once  yesterday  I 
started  to  pick  up  what  looked  like  a  perfectly  cold — be- 
cause perfectly  black — ^poker.  Luckily  a  yell  from  a  friend 
gave  warning.  Since  then  I  had  thought  that  even  at  the 
worst  I  could  have  dropped  it  too  quickly  to  have  received 
any  serious  burn.  My  friend  this  afternoon  lifted  his  dread- 
ful hand  to  give  a  fearful  testimony: 


280  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

"Drop  it?  0'  course  I  tried  to  drop  the  bloo-ody  poker ! 
But  I  couldn't !  The  bleedin'  thing  'ad  burned  so  far  into 
me  'and  that  all  the  fat  of  me  stuck  to  it  and  'eld  it  there 
a-burnin'  all  the  bloo-ody  w'ile!  My  God,  'twas  awful! 
Now  I'm  laid  off  and  two  others  'ave  to  'do  a  deuce'  for 
it.  Each  of  them,  y'  see,  does  six  hours  instead  of  four — 
and  not  a  penny  extra  for  it,  either." 

Those  were,  perhaps,  the  two  I  saw  stripped  in  the 
showers  and  all  but  dead  to  the  world  with  their  fatigue 
after  their  six  hours. 

And  there  are  250  of  these  men  on  board — less  than 
usual  because  one  of  our  four  huge  funnels,  with  its  six 
boilers  and  their  forty-eight  fires  is  not  working — con- 
juring up  the  steam  required  to  take  all  these  tons  and 
tons  of  ease  and  comfort  into  port.  No  wonder  that  men 
are  anxious  to  see  the  oil-burners  come  in,  even  though 
that  some  of  my  friends  will  wonder  "w'ere  the  bloo-ody 
'ell's  a  mon's  goin'  to  get  a  job,  eh?"  For  some,  the  first 
news  of  the  new  burners  will  mean  a  drinking  bout — the 
drinking  bout  which  follows  hard  upon  either  good  news  or 
bad,  unpleasant  anticipations  or  otherwise: 

"The  first  time  in  a  long  time  it  was  thot  I  was  droonk. 
Well,  y'  see,  the  'ole  blinkin'  voyage  yer  cawn't  drink 
nothin'.  Then  yer  gets  on  shore  and  yer  wants  ter  buy 
somethin'  fine  fer  the  wife  and  yer  cawn't  do  as  well  for 
'er  as  ye'd  like.  So  yer  ends  oop  by  mikin'  a  bloo-ody 
beast  of  yerself — ^awnd  in  the  momin'  all  yer  money's 
gone!" 

Well,  if  I  were  to  land  at  home  after  days  and  weeks  of 
such  work — perhaps  with  such  a  hand  and  the  memory 
of  that  poker  sticking  tight  to  it — that  horrible  poker  that 
would  not  drop! — I  wonder  what  I'd  do.  Involuntarily 
my  shoulders  register  uncertainty. 

To-morrow  there  will  be  the  landing — ^unless,  as  one  of 
the  sailors  put  it,  "unless  this  bleedin'  fog  piles  us  up  on 


THE  WORST  JOB  YET  281 

the  bloo-ody  beach!"  What  different  things  that  landing 
will  mean  to  us  all — by  reason  of  the  different  parts  of  the 
boat  our  different  jobs  have  permitted  us  to  occupy ! 

For  one  worker — the  imposing-looking  deck-steward: 
"This  trip  'as  been  a  royal  'oUday.  That's  because  every- 
body dresses  for  dinner — and  eats  it — in  the  dining-room. 
That  gives  us  a  chawnce  to  put  everything  away  and  get 
to  bed  at  a  fair  hour." 

Saturday  evening,  Sept.  25th, 
New  York  City. 

What  prosperous  people  these  Americans  appear  to  be! 
Every  shop  girl  or  stenographer  must  have  a  week's  wages 
on  her  back ! 

How  many  automobiles  there  are  in  the  world !  All  day 
I've  been  scared  for  my  life  every  time  I've  crossed  the 
street.  No  wonder  many  of  them  have  the  protection  of 
a  bumper  both  at  front  and  back — ^in  line  with  the  incred- 
ulous query  of  a  South  Wales  mine  manager. 

How  rapid  the  elevators  are!  It's  a  wonder  that  they 
stop  at  the  top  and  bottom  without  a  smash. 

What  a  deUght  it  is  to  telephone  with  only  one  coin  to 
be  put  into  the  slot ! 

And  not  a  drunken  man  or  woman  to  be  seen  on  the 
streets ! 

What  a  Babel  of  languages  is  spoken  here  in  between 
the  occasional  English — or  American ! 

And  how  similar  are  the  problems  here,  according  to  the 
taxi-driver  from  the  dock: 

"Here's  my  brother.  Helped  to  make  the  world  safe 
and  all  that — and  got  a  bad  wound  over  there.  And  what 
does  he  get  for  it?  Nothin'  but  a  bum  job — ^after  leavin' 
a  good  one  to  go.'* 


PART  II 
ONE  INTERPRETATION 


ONE  INTERPRETATION 

CHAPTER  IX 

"FULL  UP'? 

Cleveland,  Ohio, 
July,  192L 

The  past  few  months  have  been  among  the  most  critical 
in  British  history.  Is  there  any  interpretation  of  the  ex- 
periences and  testimonies  of  the  foregoing  pages  which  will 
throw  light  upon  these  months,  and  at  the  same  time  help 
to  a  better  understanding  of  the  more  fimdamental  and 
permanent  factors  of  both  Britain's  and  America's  indus- 
trial problems? 

Those  well-known  angels  who  "fear  to  tread"  in  difficult 
places,  fly  circles  around  my  pen  as  I  attempt  that  inter- 
pretation after  so  short  a  contact  with  the  unskilled  laborer 
in  so  small  a  sector  of  the  country's  entire  industrial  front. 
AH  I  can  do  is  to  promise  to  give  to  other  interpretations 
the  same  open-minded  considerations  which  I  bespeak  for 
this  one. 

"Full  up!" 

These  two  words  supply,  in  my  opinion,  the  key  for 
understanding  modern  British  life.  This  modern  British 
life  is  lived  in  a  crowded  country.  In  this  crowded  country 
jobs  are  scarce. 

The  summer's  ubiquitous  "Full  up  I"  was  much  more 
than  merely  the  result  of  the  war.  For  a  very  long  time 
Britain  has  been  the  self-acknowledged  land  of  the  narrow 
margin  between  the  number  of  available  jobs  and  the  num- 
ber of  people  who  need  them  for  their  daily  bread  and 
butter.  It  evidently  expects  to  be  so  for  a  long  time  to 
come.  British  Ufe — social  and  pohtical  as  well  as  indus- 
trial— is  largely  what  it  is  to-day  as  the  result  of  this  tra- 

285 


286  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

ditional  condition,  this  acknowledgment,  and  this  expec- 
tation. 

"No,  sir,  yer  eyen't  got  no  oJffice-boy,  gov'ner! — not 
unless  yer  tikes  me  on — cause  'e's  just  been  runned  over  I'* 

The  story  tells  why  the  ordinary  British  factory  needs 
no  employment  office  bigger  than  the  gaffer's  hat.  It  is 
matched  by  a  more  recent  statement  of  the  same  pressure 
at  the  other  end  of  the  social  scale: 

"All  of  us  appHcants  for  one  of  the  best  'berths'  in  the 
whole  civil  service — it  pays  more  than  1,000  pounds — ^had 
first  to  go  through  a  sort  of  oral  elimination  contest.  Cer- 
tain physical  or  other  obvious  defects  barred  one  com- 
pletely. Lack  of  a  war  record  was  completely  insurmount- 
able. If  a  chap  volunteered  in  September,  1914,  he  was 
asked  the  cause  of  his  delay!  A  large  number,  of  course, 
dropped  out.  Nevertheless  there  still  remained  of  us  who 
took  an  examination  which  required  the  highest  educational 
and  cultural  equipment  possible  to  obtain  in  England,  a 
total  of  nearly  300!" 

"When  my  engagement  to  Mr.  Asquith  was  announced," 
writes  the  author  of  the  famous  diary,  "a  number  of  my 
friends  asked  me  if  I  did  not  consider  that  I  was  doing  a 
very  unsafe  thing  to  marry  a  man  who,  though  brilHant  at 
the  law,  was  nevertheless  entirely  dependent  for  his  living 
upon  his  earnings." 

So  also  in  the  world  of  British  business  the  son  who 
succeeds  to  the  management  of  the  long-established  con- 
cern is  counselled  by  the  same  general  scarcity  of  "berths" 
to  a  poHcy  of  marked  conservatism.  Otherwise  he  may 
endanger  the  family's  inherited  guarantee  of  both  their 
sustenance  and  their  social  rank.  For  still  others  the  same 
situation,  strange  as  it  may  seem,  makes  complete  leisure 
almost  imperative. 

"You  see,"  explained  an  American  woman  whose  brother 
is  one  of  the  comparative  few  with  us  who  find  themselves 


"FULL  UP  I"  287 

in  somewhat  the  same  situation,  "he  could  not  get  a  busi- 
ness position  of  the  importance  required  by  his  social  stand- 
ing without  investing  rather  heavily.  But  if  he  did  that, 
then  he  might  lose  the  whole  of  his  share  of  our  father's 
estate.  That  gives  him  enough  to  live  on  in  comfort  'pro- 
vided he  does  not  lose  it" 

It  is  these  various  considerations  which  give  the  reason 
for  the  importance  of  our  philosopher  friend's  "Old  Gold." 
But  the  old  gold  thus  represented  by  the  possession  of  a  busi- 
ness or  of  stocks  and  bonds  furnishes  more  than  a  guaran- 
tee of  economic  safety  and  more  than  a  selfish  prohibition  of 
work.  The  appreciation  of  that  universal  "Full up ! "  means 
that  any  one  who  does  not  need  a  job  ought  not  to  take  one. 
If  he  does,  he  thereby  lessens  by  that  much  the  chances  of 
those  who  do  need  one.  Where,  therefore,  the  old  gold  is 
Bufl&cient,  the  supposedly  lucky  owner  is  almost  forced  into 
either  poHtics  or  sport  if  he  would  enjoy  some  sense  of  dis- 
tinction in  ways  worthier  than  merely  by  conspicuous  ex- 
penditure. As  a  matter  of  fact  the  popularity  or  good-will 
gained  in  sport  in  a  sport-loving  country  may  quite  easily  be 
capitalized  at  the  polls  for  the  start  of  a  worthy  poUtical 
career. 

All  these  various  considerations,  also,  make  it  plain 
enough  how  he  who  lacks  the  old  gold  of  past  earning  power 
comes  to  consider  that  the  family  job  makes  a  perfectly 
good  form  of  property  for  passing  earning  power  on  down 
to  his  children,  and  his  children's  children.  Thus  a  success- 
ful American  ship-builder: 

"'If  this  berth  has  been  good  enough  for  me  for  forty 
years — and  for  my  father  before  me — I  don't  see  why  it 
isn't  good  enough  for  you.'  That's  what  my  father  back 
in  Scotland  said  to  me  when  I  told  him  I  wanted  to  take 
a  chance  and  try  my  fortune  abroad.  I  had  just  passed,  at 
twenty-one,  the  examination  which  showed  that  I  could 
expect  to  succeed  him  without  difficulty  as  head  of  a  small 


288  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

government  shipyard.  So,  in  a  way,  I  was  a  made  man. 
That  meant,  of  course,  not  only  security  but  a  lot  of  social 
prestige.  As  to  that,  even  when  I  became  a  foreman  a 
few  years  earlier,  the  older  men  among  whom  I  had  grown 
up  as  a  boy  immediately  stopped  calling  me  Tom — from 
that  very  day  it  was  always  'Mr.'  And  if  I  had — after 
that  day — asked  one  of  them  to  ride  home  with  me,  I  would 
have  lost  'face'  all  over  the  place.  Following  my  refusal 
of  my  father's  job — that  was  twenty  years  ago — the  old 
gentleman  has  never  spoken  a  single  word  to  me!" 

Thus  from  bottom  to  top  a  whole  people  finds  it  necessary 
to  adjust  itself  in  one  way  or  another  to  the  whip  of  that 
"Full  up!"  As  a  result — and  a  far-reaching  result — a 
whole  people  comes  naturally  to  give  its  chief  attention  to 
security  rather  than  to  opportunity.  Those  who  like  to 
"take  a  chance"  it  tends  to  consider  not  courageous  but  as 
foolhardy  and  almost  dangerous  citizens.  In  a  word,  the 
whole  people  combines  to  make  by  its  universal  approvals 
the  greatest  of  social  virtues  out  of  the  art — ^and  the  science 
— of  "playing  safe." 

The  holding  of  the  job  thus  comes  enormously  to  exceed 
in  importance  the  making  and  the  development  of  it.  Thus 
the  earning  of  a  Uving  comes  to  be  robbed  of  the  spirit  of 
adventure :  it  is  too  serious  a  matter  to  permit  the  pleasures 
of  risk.  The  satisfaction  of  the  exploit — the  thrill  of  excite- 
ment which  comes  from  playing  with  not  too  dangerous 
uncertainties  and  the  exercise  of  skill  and  judgment  in  their 
handling — these  may  be  found  elsewhere,  if  necessary,  but 
surely  not  on  the  job.  If  you  should  lose  or  endanger 
that,  what  then  ? — not  only  for  yourself  and  your  bread  and 
butter,  but  for  your  children  and  your  children's  children ! 

It  is  this,  without  doubt,  which  largely  accounts  for  the 
national  institution  of  the  "bookie."  The  winning  of  that 
lucky  thirty-three  to  one  shot  had  practically  no  financial 
value  for  my  miner  friend  there  in  the  South  Wales  "pub" 


"FULL  UP!"  289 

after  he  left  the  course.  But  it  is  one  of  his  life's  "high 
spots."  Up  to  the  day  of  his  death  he  will  lick  the  chops 
of  his  pride  with  the  sweet  pleasure  of  the  homage  of  his 
admiring  and  envious  friends  and  Usteners.  Here  at  home 
we  get  much  the  same  excitements  and  the  same  pleasures. 
But  we  get  them  mainly  from  our  business — our  job.  With 
us  the  day's  work  is  much  more  of  a  game.  We  forget  that 
we  are  much  freer  to  play  this  game  only  because  if  we 
lose  we  are  so  much  freer  to  find  other  opportunities  to 
start  over  again.  One  of  our  large  institutions  for  corre- 
spondence study  has  received  in  the  course  of  a  compara- 
tively few  years,  tuitions  totalling  more  than  $100,000,000 ! 
In  a  very  real  sense  these  are  the  wagers  laid  down  by 
thousands  and  thousands  of  young-men  gamblers.  But 
they  are  gambling  on  themselves  and  their  own  possibili- 
ties! The  chances  are  that  they  are  too  intent  upon  this 
game  to  care  to  give  much  time  for  the  horses,  the  whippets, 
the  pigeons,  or  even  "the  'ymns." 

Likewise  in  the  matter  of  the  nation-wide  popularity  of 
John  Barleycorn.  Bad  jobs,  with  their  usual  accompani- 
ment of  bad  living  conditions,  and  with,  especially,  poor 
prospects  of  getting  a  "jump"  or  other  chance  up  and  out 
of  them  into  lines  guarded  by  that  closed  door  of  the  gaf- 
fer's "Full  up!" — it  is  these  that  furnish  the  source  of  the 
thirst  of  millions  of  men.  It  is  these  that  give  to  John 
Barleycorn  a  smiling  face  in  the  eyes  of  millions  of  the 
world's  least  successful  workers.  For  to  these  he  promises 
those  delightful  satisfactions  of  successful  exploit  which  are 
always  hungered  for  in  the  hearts  of  even  the  lowliest  men, 
but  which  their  jobs  refuse.  To  such  as  these  old  Blear- 
Eyed  John  promises  a  delightful  short-circuit  into  exactly 
that  golden  age  of  comfort,  self-respect,  and  achievement 
which  their  conditions  deny. 

"The  drunker  ye  be,  the  less  ye'll  be  a-mindin*  o*  the 
flies  and  the  bugs,"  according  to  my  near  down-and-out 


290  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

friend  of  the  Northwest's  construction  camps.  "And  when 
ye  sober  up,  ye're  used  to  'em.     See?" 

"I  just  like  to  drink  enough,"  said  old  Uncle  Zeke,  who 
knew,  as  long  as  he  was  sober,  that  his  best  working-days 
in  the  steel  plant  were  gone,  "I  just  like  to  drink  enough 
to  get  the  feelin'  of  me  old  position  back,  like." 

From  that  same  fundamental  factor  also  of  scarce  jobs, 
chronically  scarce  jobs,  comes  that  division  of  "class" — 
that  everlasting  ''Workin'  clawss,  we  are,  ye  know!" 
When  you  can  get,  at  fourteen  or  at  twenty-one,  the  job 
which  you  can  pretty  confidently  expect — ^with  good  luck — 
to  hold  on  to  until  you're  old  and  pensioned,  then  you  have 
the  makings  of  class  hnes.  At  least  you  have  the  retention 
of  them  instead  of  that  destruction  of  them  which  might 
be  expected  in  any  industry  which  offered  full  opportunity 
for  men  to  rise  in  responsibility  as  rapidly  as  their  abilities 
and  capacities  developed.  Nothing  is  more  important  to 
understand,  and  at  all  times  to  remember,  than  this:  that 
among  an  industrial  people  social  levels — the  level  of  the 
worker,  and  particularly  the  standing  of  his  wife  and  family 
in  the  community — ^tend  to  follow  job  levels.  So  where  the 
demonstration  of  ability  can  be  counted  upon  to  bring 
recognition  and  the  chance  at  a  better  job,  there  a  man  will 
always  endeavor  to  finish  his  industrial  career  at  a  social 
level  above  that  of  the  stage  of  entrance.  Those  who  suc- 
ceed in  this  are  playing  the  game  of  the  job  successfully; 
they  cannot  know  much  about  the  restrictions  of  "class," 
because  their  developing  abihties  and  their  expanding  re- 
sponsibihties  cause  their  "class"  from  year  to  year,  or 
decade  to  decade,  to  change ! 

Education  will,  of  course,  have  much  to  do  with  the 
abihty  of  such  men  to  expand  their  powers  as  rapidly  aa 
the  job  may  require.  But  we  undoubtedly  assign  too  great 
an  importance  to  the  schools  when  we  assume  that  differ- 
ences of  education  are,  in  themselves  and  alone,  mainly 


"FULL  UP!"  291 

responsible  for  the  ordinary  differences  of  "class."  Edu- 
cational facilities  have  to  depend  for  their  effectiveness  upon 
their  use.  They  will  not  be  used  if  their  users  find  no 
"berth"  which  permits  the  practical — and  the  properly 
recognized — apphcation  of  the  newly  developed  abilities. 
This  depends  upon  the  width  or  narrowness  of  that  margin 
between  the  number  of  jobs  and  the  number  of  persons 
who  need  them. 

In  the  same  way  this  same  national  margin  must  be  kept 
constantly  in  mind  in  trying  to  understand  the  part  played 
by  the  labor  unions.  He  confuses  results  with  causes  who 
considers  them  the  most  important  and  compelHng  part  of 
modem  British  industry.  They  are,  perhaps,  the  most  out- 
standing. They  do,  perhaps,  try  to  exert  too  strong  a 
pressiu-e  in  certain  directions.  But,  after  all  is  said  and 
done,  they  must  be  seen  as  organized  agencies  by  which 
the  worker  aims  to  adapt  himseK  to  that  scarcity  of  the 
job,  and  to  that  scarcity  of  both  social  and  industrial  oppor- 
tunity which  follows  close  upon  it.  Finding  the  job  and 
then  holding  it  against  the  possibility  of  all  arbitrary 
tyranny — the  prime  importance  of  at  least  these  two  ser- 
vices of  the  union  is  driven  home  into  men's  very  souls 
every  time  the  gaffer  shrugs  his  shoulder  and  utters  that 
dreadful  but  decisive  "Full  up  I" 

But  these  two  functions  of  the  union  are  only  the  begin- 
ning. At  every  stage  the  worker — ^like  everybody  else — 
is  facing  the  question  of  method  raised  by  his  seK-respect: 
"You  wish,  of  course,  to  'get  on'  and  'count'  and  be 
somebody  if  at  all  possible.  All  right.  But  howf  Will 
you  try  it  by  yourself  or  with  your  fellow  workers?  Will 
you  go  it  alone  or  with  your  trade,  your  class,  or,  in  short, 
your  union?"  Ordinarily  the  man  who  finds  the  going 
good  "on  his  own"  seldom  feels  the  necessity  of  joining  his 
group,  even  though  he  has  to  meet  the  heavy  pressure  ex- 
erted to  obtain  his  class  loyalty.    Where,  however,  jobs 


292  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

are  so  scarce  that  it  is  over-risky  to  leave  one  place  in  the 
hope  of  a  better,  then  the  only  elevator  up  is  likely  to  appear 
the  one  which  his  group,  or  class,  is  able  to  organize.  Thus 
the  craft  or  trade-union  develops  for  maintaining  the  indus- 
trial and  social  status  of  the  steamfitters,  for  instance,  in 
comparison  with  the  electrical  workers,  and  for  advancing 
the  standing  of  them  both  in  comparison  with  all  the  rest 
of  us. 

The  nation-wide  acceptance  of  the  British  union  can, 
therefore,  be  seen  as  a  practical  acknowledgment  of  the 
lessened  opportunity  of  the  individual.  Only  one  form  of 
opposition  to  these  group,  or  class  stairways  will,  in  the 
long  run,  succeed  in  directing  into  other  channels  the  huge 
pressure  of  men's  wish  to  believe  in  themselves  and  their 
individual  worth — thfeir  increasing  individual  worth.  That 
is  the  form  which  arranges  to  furnish  so  large  a  measure  of 
opportunity  to  each  individual,  as  an  individual,  as  to 
make  him  unwilling  to  accept  the  mass  measures  of  the 
union  at  the  price  asked. 

In  the  same  way,  also,  the  causes  of  wide-spread  restriction 
of  output  go  down  deep,  not  simply  into  unionism,  but  to 
the  more  fundamental  conditions  which  call  forth  the  de- 
sire for  unionism  and  its  works.  Let  a  man  live  for  years 
under  the  daily  pressure  of  that  narrow  margin  between 
job  and  no  job,  let  him  observe,  day  after  day,  that  when 
some  men  work  it  appears  to  mean  that  for  exactly  that 
reason  other  men  cannot  work,  then  the  most  important 
factor  in  his  whole  life  is  sure  to  be  the  conviction  that  there 
simply  isn't  enough  work  to  go  'round.  To  us  it  may 
seem  very  selfish  that  such  a  man  is  unwilling,  under  the 
circumstances,  to  give  himself  the  satisfaction  of  a  good 
day's  work.  Personally  I  am  sure  that  the  averageiworker 
would  rather  have  that  satisfaction  every  night  than  to 
carry  home  his  dinner  pail  with  the  knowledge  that  he  has 
spent  his  day  in  shirking.    The  ambitious  but  unhappy 


**  FULL.  UP!"  293 

worker  at  the  gate  of  the  Woolwich  arsenal  is  only  one 
among  scores  of  others  whom  I  can  recall  in  both  countries. 
The  trouble  is  that,  especially  in  Britain,  but  also,  to  an 
enormously  greater  extent  than  ought  to  be  true,  in  America, 
the  worker  has  been  taught  by  his  own  sad  experience 
to  consider  that  such  spiritual  satisfaction  for  himself  may 
rob  some  other  fellow  worker  of  his  very  bread  and  butter ! 

Still  further,  and  finally,  it  is  that  same  "Full  up!" 
which  makes  the  craft  strike  an  extremely  costly  tool  for 
the  holding  of  established  class  or  trade  advantages,  or  the 
gaining  of  new  ones.  In  the  nature  of  the  case,  the  strike's 
seriousness  to  the  worker  increases  very  rapidly  where  the 
margin  of  living  is  already  very  narrow  in  his  particular 
field,  and  more  or  less  non-existent  in  other  related  lines 
into  which  he  might  beat  a  retreat.  This  means  that  these 
narrow-margin  workers  will  make  great  effort  to  strengthen 
themselves  by  amalgamation  with  their  friends  who  pos- 
sess both  the  wider  margins  and  the  greater  influence  of 
more  skilled  jobs.  It  also  means  that  in  a  country  of  nar- 
row margins  such  an  amalgamation  will  try  to  save  the 
cost  of  the  strike  wherever  possible  by  developing  the  power 
of  its  political  influence. 

It  is  necessary,  as  we  have  seen,  to  have  this  latter  devel- 
opment very  much  in  mind  in  order  to  understand  the  set- 
ting of  the  present  stage  of  British  industry.  Doubtless 
it  is  even  more  necessary  to  keep  it  in  mind  in  connection 
with  the  near  future.  But  before  discussing  that  we  ought 
to  ask  this  question: 

"If  these  various  considerations  have  followed  upon  the 
gradual  lessening  of  industrial  opportunity  under  the  pres- 
sure of  the  gaffer's  'Full  up!'  during  the  course  of  many 
years,  what  has  happened  to  give  this  chronic  situation  so 
acute  a  phase  at  this  particular  time?" 


CHAPTER  X 

"FED  UP  I" 

The  answer  to  that  question  appears  to  me  to  be  this: 

The  British  citizen  in  general — also  the  British  worker  in 
particular — ^is  tired.  Tired  and  therefore  touchy — danger- 
ously touchy — ''Fed  up!" 

This  condition  is  due  partly  to  the  long  continuance,  in 
certain  districts,  of  such  living  conditions  as  Glasgow's. 
These,  in  turn,  are  one  result  of  the  country's  age.  Build- 
ings erected  a  hundred  years  ago  in  a  growing  city  are  more 
difficult  of  renovation  than  we  Americans  find  it  easy  to 
understand.  Ancient  working  conditions,  likewise,  in  in- 
dustries operated  for  generations  are  not  easily  replaced 
with  up-to-date  arrangements.  The  same  pressure  of  the 
scanty  job  which  holds  a  man  to  a  "berth"  in  spite  of  its 
bad  conditions,  holds  him  also  to  the  same  tenement — ^all 
the  unhappier,  perhaps,  at  the  thought  of  his  luckier  friends 
employed  in  one  of  the  country's  garden-factory-cities. 
Upon  such  a  worker  the  ease  of  access  to  the  sport  fields,  op 
the  attractive  meadows  surrounding  the  average  town  or 
small  city  is  a  moderating  influence  of  great  importance. 
The  influence  of  the  "pub"  and  its  position  as  the  social 
centre  of  the  community  is,  on  the  whole,  distinctly  bad. 

Between  the  condition  of  our  muscles  and  the  moral  con- 
victions of  our  "mentals"  a  very  close  connection  is  con- 
tinuously maintained  by  those  ever-present  and  ever-active 
liaison  officers  known  as  our  feelings.  As  the  result  of  their 
efforts  we  should  expect  that  the  physical  conditions  under 
which  a  considerable  proportion  of  Britain's  unskilled 
workers  live  and  work  would  induce  moral  convictions  more 

294 


"FED  UP!"  295 

or  less  antagonistic  if  not  revolutionary.  During  the  course 
of  years  and  decades,  however,  the  depressed  groups  born 
and  raised  into  the  manifest  fixedness  of  their  condition, 
and  dulled  by  the  dreary  and  deceptive  ministrations  of 
John  Barleycorn,  would  probably  grow  less  and  less  artic- 
ulate. Such  groups  would  require  something  in  the  nature 
of  a  crisis  to  bring  their  misery  into  any  unmistakable  form 
of  utterance. 

The  war  has  furnished  this  crisis. 

Its  strains  have  come  in  every  plane,  physical,  mental, 
and  spiritual.  These  have  brought  the  usual  result  of 
"Tiredness  and  Temper."  As  might  be  expected,  this 
"T  and  T,"  or  "T  'n'  T,"  has  demonstrated  its  usual  pres- 
sure toward  some  explosive  outlet.  The  outbreaks  of  im- 
rest  and  of  disorder  have  been  the  result. 

One  great  spiritual  barrier  between  America  and  Europe 
is  that  we  have  found  it  so  difficult  to  comprehend  the 
intensity  of  the  "Great  Fatigue."  This  is  undoubtedly 
among  the  most  important  spiritual  factors  in  the  whole 
present  European  situation.  To  be  sure,  we  have  ourselves 
experienced  an  extreme  "let-down"  from  the  high  elations 
of  our  great  enterprise — a  let-down  which  shows  itself  in 
practically  every  department  of  our  living.  Nevertheless, 
it  is  certain  that  we  have  largely  failed  to  appreciate  the 
full  intensity  of  the  war  weariness  which  has  followed  from 
the  strains  of  the  war  upon  peoples  for  whom  it  was  not 
only  much  longer  but  also  infinitely  more  serious  and  vital 
than  for  us. 

The  colossal  physical  strains  of  the  long  years  of  conflict 
and  the  spiritual  elations  required  for  enduring  them,  these 
together  have  set  the  stage  for  nation-wide — ^yes,  world- 
wide— disappointment  and  unhappiness.  By  millions  the 
fighters  of  the  victorious  nations  came  home  to  enjoy  the 
blessings  of  peaceful  and,  therefore,  presumably,  of  normal, 
comfortable  life.    Almost  everywhere  the  post-armistice 


296  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

political  campaigns  promised  that  comfort,  improvement, 
and  general  amelioration  which,  in  the  hearts  of  all,  was 
required  to  make  the  world  worth  all  the  blood  which  had 
been  shed  to  save  it.  Every  country  was  to  be  made  "fit 
for  heroes  to  live  in."  So  we  all,  as  it  were,  turned  down 
the  covers  preparatory  to  the  first  good  snooze  in  years, 
anticipating  our  waking  in  the  new  era  of  our  war-bought 
aspirations.  And  then  it  happened!  Just  at  that  very 
moment  our  weary  ears  were  assailed  with  the  waihngs  and 
waulings  of  those  unruly  war  babies  known  as  the  high 
cost  of  Uving,  dislocated  and  demoralized  economic  statuses 
and  relationships,  perplexed  statesmen,  puzzled  leaders,  and, 
finally,  to  cap  the  climax,  millions  of  balky  buyers ! 

The  Great  P  ace  has  brought  not  peace  but  a  mass  of 
social,  poUtical,  and  economic  problems  of  such  a  breadth 
and  depth  and  height  as  the  civilized  world  has  never  seen 
before.  Those  problems  require  for  their  solution  wider 
information,  broader  experience,  and  deeper  sympathy  than 
has  ever  been  given  to  the  most  thoughtful  citizen  or  the 
most  experienced  statesman.  That  in  itself  would  be  bad 
enough.  What  is  much  worse  is  this:  the  problems  brought 
us  by  the  Great  Peace  have  to  be  solved  with  the  depleted 
physical,  moral,  and  spiritual  strength  left  us  by  the  Great 
War.  New  and  unexpected  difficulties  and  obstructions  have 
been  piled  upon  the  older  ones.  The  unwonted  and  mis- 
understood wearinesses  and  weaknesses  of  the  war  have  been 
piled  high  upon  the  weaknesses  and  wearinesses  of  genera- 
tions. In  Britain  hundreds  of  thousands  of  those  young  men 
who  have  been  regularly  trained  and  counted  upon  to  play 
their  part  in  working  difficult  things  out,  have  never  yet  re- 
turned from  the  day  they  marched  off  as  volunteers  to  death ! 
The  situation,  surely,  is  enough  to  try  men's  patience.  Yes, 
and  to  break  it ! 

So  it  is  not  strange  if  that  "pressure  from  beneath," 
which  is  exerted  by  milfions  of  workers  in  such  a  time  and 


"FED  UP!"  297 

in  such  a  mood,  comes  to  have,  in  Britain,  a  cutting  edge — 
or,  perhaps  better,  a  needle-point  which  has  threatened 
to  prick  the  deUcate  fabric  of  the  whole  great  dirigible  of 
■  the  nation's  life. 

For  exactly  this  threat  came  in  the  form  of  the  great 
coal  strike.  The  lengths  to  which  that  ever-present  pres- 
sure from  beneath  may  go  when  the  mood  of  men  is  bad, 
was  never  better  demonstrated  than  by  the  unwillingness 
of  the  strikers — against  the  advice  of  their  leaders — to  allow 
the  manning  of  the  mine  pumps.  That  meant  that  they 
were  desperately  willing  to  run  the  risk  of  ruining  not  only 
their  country's  but  their  own  means  of  Hvelihood.  As 
might  be  expected,  my  buddies  and  fellow  workers  in  the 
Rhondda  mine  figured  conspicuously  in  the  cabled  accounts 
of  the  assaults  made  on  the  volunteers  sent  in  to  serve  the 
pumps. 

That  strike  has  finally  been  settled,  not  by  nationahzation 
but  by  recourse  to  "standard  wages,  standard  profits,  and 
profit-sharing" — phrases  of  which  much  more  is  Hkely  to 
be  heard  in  future.  But  the  pressure  of  the  lower  part  of 
the  British  working  world  has  by  no  means  been  completely 
reheved,  "Bob"  SmilHe  would  doubtless  say  again,  as 
before,  that  it  is  still  "a  race  between  socialism  and  revolu- 
tion," not  to  mention  the  established  order  as  another  con- 
testant. The  question  is,  can  the  pressure  which  arises  out 
of  men's  moods  under  the  compulsions  of  that  chronic 
"Full  up !"  be  given  in  these  critical  and  acute  "Fed  up  I" 
days  an  outlet  sufficient  to  avoid  explosion? 

"Aye,  we  moost  'ave  order,"  one  of  my  miner  friends 
used  to  say.  His  mood  represents  the  traditional  tendency 
of  the  Briton.  This  traditional  view-point  can  be  expected 
to  stand  strain  far  beyond  the  point  where  other  workers 
might  blow  up.  On  the  other  hand,  there  is  at  the  moment 
of  writing  a  new  danger  factor.  That  is  the  joblessness  of 
millions  of  British  workers.    This,  as  I  well  know,  is  capable 


298  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

of  driving  the  most  conservative  of  men  into  desperation 
through  the  deadUness  of  its  demoralization — its  daily, 
cumulative  demoralization.  Still  further,  this  joblessness 
takes  away  from  the  worker  the  use  of  his  usual  industrial 
tool  of  the  strike.  It  accordingly  favors  the  use  of  political 
instruments — ^and  more  than  a  few  of  the  labor  leaders  are 
convinced  that  even  these  are  too  cumbersome  for  getting 
the  relief  demanded  by  workers  who  are  too  fagged  and 
*'Fed  up"  to  be  squeamish  about  method. 

On  the  whole,  however,  revolution  is  hardly  likely,  at 
least  for  the  present.  Of  course  it  is  quite  conceivable  that 
such  an  acute  situation  will  result  in  putting  the  Labor  party 
in  power.  But  that  is  a  much  less  extreme  matter  than 
we  in  America  are  apt  to  assume.  With  such  a  man  as 
Arthur  Henderson  or  J.  H.  Thomas  for  its  Prime  Minister 
any  sudden  modification  of  social  or  economic  policy  is 
hardly  to  be  expected. 
The  real  question  is:  ''After  the  Labor  party,  what?" 
For  undoubtedly  the  millions  who  exert  that  pressure 
from  beneath  will  be  disappointed  by  what  the  Labor 
party's  leaders  will  be  able  quickly  to  accomplish  in  re- 
modelUng  the  complicated  situation  of  these  present  days 
into  something  nearer  to  the  heart's  desire  of  the  nation. 
Those  who  have  never  carried  responsibiHty  for  solving 
great  problems  generally  assume  that  the  possession  of  the 
power  is  all  that  is  needed.  They  have  seen  the  govern- 
ment make  the  wheels  of  the  whole  country  go  round  for 
the  successful  winning  of  the  war.  They  are  convinced  that 
Lloyd  George  and  his  associates  possess  to-day  all  the 
power  for  the  curing  of  the  country's  ills.  The  difficulty  is 
that  the  hands  of  these  are  withheld  from  the  act  of  curing 
because  their  own  personal  selfishness  and  greed  are  served 
by  this  withholding.  Disappointment  is,  accordingly,  sure 
to  come  when  the  workers  put  their  leaders  into  full  posi- 
tion to  apply  their  sympathetic  hands  for  the  sovereign 


"FED  UP!"  299 

cure  and  then  behold  them,  for  some  strange  reason,  hesi- 
tant— with  the  ills  of  high  cost  of  hving,  unemployment, 
etc.,  still  persisting !  In  such  a  case  I  can  hear  my  friends 
saying  over  their  beer:  "A  fair  wash-out  they  are — like  all 
the  rest  of  'um !  Speakin'  us  fine  words  till  they  get  their 
canes  and  their  fine  clothes  and  all,  and  then  forgettin'  of 
us!" 

"True  enough,"  will  then  come  the  answer  of  the  extrem- 
ists and  the  revolutionists.  ' '  They've  let  you  down,  all  right. 
Now  give  us  the  chance !" 

The  worker's  answer  to  that  appeal  will  depend  not  so 
much  upon  his  thinking  as  upon  his  feeHng  at  the  moment 
— ^upon  his  mood.  That  mood,  in  turn,  will  depend  upon 
the  abihty  of  the  leaders  of  the  present  and  the  early  future 
— ^whether  they  are  of  the  Labor  Party  or  of  the  present 
government — to  assuage  by  degrees  the  acuteness  of  that 
dangerous  "Fed  up"  spirit  and  to  direct  its  pressure  into 
constructive  channels  for  the  betterment  of  the  fife  of  all 
the  country's  workers.  This,  it  appears  to  me,  can  only 
be  accomplished  by  lessening  in  some  way  the  pressure  of 
that  everlasting  "Full  up!" 

With  hardly  a  moment's  hesitation  the  great  majority 
of  Britain's  labor  leaders  and  also  of  its  "iutellectuals" 
would  reply  that  there  is  only  one  way  to  do  this:  either 
eliminate  entirely  or  enormously  restrict  the  possibility  of 
private  profit.  According  to  a  few,  one  way  to  do  this 
would  be  by  means  of  the  guild  socialism  which  would  or- 
ganize the  different  fields  of  commerce  and  industry  into 
a  democracy  practically  free  from  the  "mawster"  and  his 
profits.  According  to  more,  the  better  way  is  to  so  enlarge 
the  powers  of  government  in  combination  with  the  work- 
ers as  to  eliminate  the  present  inequalities  due  to  capitalism, 
and  at  the  same  time  avoid  the  wastes  and  inefficiencies  of 
ordinary  bureaucratic  control. 

Such  weeks  as  those  already  described  make  it  very  easy 


300  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

for  any  one  to  sympathize  with  those  who  feel  that  the 
estabUshed  arrangement  of  matters  social  and  industrial  in 
Britain  must  somehow  be  made  to  show  improvement  on 
behalf  of  millions  of  humans — ^huge  improvement.  At  the 
same  time  the  same  short  weeks  make  an  observer  wonder 
whether  those  who  hope  and  work  for  radical  change  are 
not  too  close  to  see  fully  the  complications  introduced  into 
the  problem  by  two  considerations — two  considerations 
which  appear  to  a  visitor  particularly  to  distinguish  the  in- 
dustrial situation  in  Great  Britain. 


CHAPTER  XI 
HOW  MANY  JOBS  TO  A  NATION? 

Of  these  two  considerations  the  first  is  this:  Within  the 
last  few  years  the  socialization  of  the  job  by  means  of  the 
sociaUzation  of  the  state  has  become  more  a  matter  of  in- 
ternational relations  and  poUcy  than  of  national. 

This  has  special  bearing  on  the  case  of  Great  Britain.  It  is 
only  necessary  to  Uve  where  jobs  are  scarce  in  order  to  learn 
that  the  job  is  one  of  the  realest  and  most  vital  forms  of  prop- 
erty. Those  who  Uve  where  this  appreciation  is  general  come 
altogether  easily  to  the  belief  that  government  should  con- 
cern itself  immensely  more  with  the  property  of  jobs — ^with 
wages,  hours,  and  other  job  conditions — and  inmiensely 
less  with  the  property  of  bricks  and  acres,  stocks  and  con- 
tracts. There  on  the  job  is  where  most  men  Uve — especiaUy 
those  whose  most  compelling  fact  is  the  narrowness  of  their 
money  margin.  It  must  be  said  that  the  law-makers  find 
it  difiicult  to  meet  the  workers  there.  These,  on  the  other 
hand,  find  it  very  diflScult  to  see  any  connection  between 
their  pay  envelopes  and  the  country's  commissioner  of 
commerce  at  the  capital,  or  its  ambassador  abroad — ^mat- 
ters which  appear  of  so  much  concern  to  the  law-makers. 
Nevertheless,  it  is  to-day  impossible  to  talk  about  the 
maintenance  of  jobs,  and  of  the  conditions  of  living  which 
depend  upon  them,  without  keeping  in  mind,  at  the  same 
time,  the  exigencies  of  commercial  competition  with  other 
nations.  Thus  labor  and  government  come  in  these  present 
days  to  have  about  as  much  trouble  understanding  each 
other  as  labor  and  capital. 

"Before  the  war  it  cost  in  wages  6s.  lid.  to  produce  a 

301 


302  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

ton  of  coal,"  said  Lloyd  George  to  the  British  people,  in 
the  effort  to  convince  them  that  the  wages  and  profits  men- 
tioned by  the  miners  are  not  constants  like  ''a"  or  ^'b,"  but 
highly  undependable  and  uncertain  "x's"  in  the  equation 
of  the  nation's  jobs  and  economics,  and  therefore  of  its 
government.  ''Last  year  it  cost  25s.  9d.  in  wages  to  pro- 
duce a  ton,  and  by  February  that  had  gone  up  to  27s. 
That  is,  it  costs  four  times  as  much  in  wages  to  produce  a 
ton  as  it  did  before  the  war.  That  does  not  mean  that  the 
wages  have  gone  up  four  times,  but  that  the  output  per 
man  has  come  down.  Before  the  war  one  man  would  turn 
out  in  a  day  twenty-one  hundredweight.  Last  year  one 
man  turned  out  fifteen  and  one-half  hundredweight.  Think 
of  that  over  hundreds  of  thousands  of  men — increased  wages, 
diminished  hours,  diminished  output,  impaired  efficiency, 
costs  all  around  going  up.  How  can  we  compete  in  the 
markets  of  the  world  with  that  going  on?  For  one  reason 
and  another  the  output  in  America  has  gone  up,  very 
largely  due  to  improved  machinery  and  to  the  fact  that  the 
coal  seams  in  America  are  very  much  thicker  than  ours. 
You  cannot  use  machinery  in  our  coal  pits  that  you  can 
use  in  some  of  the  American  pits.  That  makes  it  more 
incumbent  that  we  should  do  everything  to  reduce  the  cost 
in  this  country.     It  is  our  only  chance." 

It  is  easy  for  the  worker  to  believe  that  he  would  have 
a  steady  job  every  day  if  only  the  present  system  did  not 
make  it  to  the  "mawster's"  interest  occasionally  to  close 
down  his  plant  in  order  to  let  consumption  catch  up  with 
production.  Following  that  it  is  still  easier  to  make  "the 
great  assumption" — namely,  that  when  private  profit  is 
taken  out  of  industry  by  means  of  government  operation, 
then  all  motive  and  all  cause  for  unemployment  ceases. 
Unfortunately,  however,  the  question  remains  for  the  gov- 
ernment or  for  the  private  manager:  "Can  coal  be  raised  in 
South  Wales  on.  a  basis  which  will  permit,  first,  successful 


HOW  MANY  JOBS  TO  A  NATION?         303 

competition  with  other  coal  in  the  world's  markets,  and 
second,  a  fairly  normal  and  comfortable  life  to  the  miner?" 

The  answer  need  not  necessarily  be  a  matter  of  wages  and 
hours.  That  is  a  national  or  even  a  local  affair.  It  must, 
however,  be  a  question  of  something  quite  different,  namely 
of  wages  per  ton — of  labor  costs  per  unit  of  production.  That 
is  not  only  a  matter  of  international  interest,  but  of  the 
most  vital  national  and  local  importance.  There  is,  to  be 
sure,  one  way  in  which  the  disagreeable  compulsions  of  this 
situation  can  be  avoided.  That  is  by  seeing  to  it  that  all 
the  competing  nations  arrange  to  socialize,  or,  as  it  were, 
"de-profit-ize"  themselves  at  the  same  time,  and  so  adapt 
their  various  relationships  upon  the  basis  entirely  of  ser- 
vice. As  long  as  the  prospects  for  this  are  as  remote  as 
they  appear  at  the  present  moment,  the  disagreeable  fact 
remains  that  domestic  operation  must  depend  upon  inter- 
national competition  as  determined,  in  turn,  by  that  ty- 
rannical factor  of  wages  per  ton.  And  that  has  now  ev- 
erywhere become,  like  modem  warfare,  a  matter  of  the 
organization  of  pretty  much  the  entire  resources  of  the 
nation.  So  the  covering  of  those  bottoms  leaving  the  South 
Wales  ports  may  demand  the  strength,  the  good-will,  and 
the  intelHgence  not  only  of  the  country's  miners,  owners, 
and  managers,  but  also  of  the  nation's  inventors,  economists, 
psychologists,  philosophers,  and  statesmen. 

The  successful  meeting  of  this  vital  challenge  is  undoubt- 
edly aided  by  the  co-operative  movement.  This  is  now 
sai4  to  serve  something  like  a  third  of  the  population,  and 
doubtless  increases  to  a  definite  extent  the  buying  power  of 
the  wage  dollar.  On  the  other  hand,  the  challenge  is  not 
in  the  least  dodged  or  lessened  in  the  long  run  by  the  na- 
tional institution  of  unemployment  insurance.  As  has  only 
recently  been  demonstrated,  the  whole  of  British  industry 
comes  to  a  halt  shortly  after  its  exports  become  no  longer 
salable  abroad.    With  British  industry  halted,  the  income 


304  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

for  the  paying  of  the  unemployment  "doles"  comes  shortly 
to  an  end.  Neither  employer,  employee,  nor  government 
can  pay  its  share.  At  the  same  time  it  is  conceivable  that 
the  plan  may  help  to  get  from  all  these  interested  parties 
the  attention  needed  for  solving  the  real  problem — the 
problem,  namely,  of  increasing  the  number  of  jobs — 
regular  jobs. 

Definite  steps  in  this  direction  of  lowering  production 
and  distribution  costs  are  said  to  be  receiving  the  attention 
of  the  country.  These  include  the  projected  tunnel  under 
the  English  Channel,  plans  for  obtaining  cheap  power  from 
the  tides  of  Bristol  Bay,  from  the  watercourses  of  Scotland 
and  other  parts  of  the  country,  and  the  ''Cross  Canal"  for 
connecting  practically  all  parts  of  industrial  England.  It 
is  quite  conceivable,  also,  that  the  government  might  plan 
early  and  extensive  developments  for  transforming  coal 
into  electric  power  at  or  near  pit-head,  in  line  with  the  pro- 
posals of  the  Labor  party.  • 

But  it  must  be  said  that  any  government  is  pretty  sure 
to  find  the  early  future  unfriendly  to  these  proposals,  how- 
ever helpful  they  may  prove  in  the  long  run  to  the  reduc- 
tion of  unit  costs.  For  such  projects  are  sure  to  call  for 
additional  increases  in  budgets  already  staggering.  My 
weeks  in  the  mine  town  made  me  feel  certain  that  such 
expenditures  would  be  a  long  time  in  appealing  to  the 
workers  and  their  pockets,  even  though  their  value  might 
be  apparent  to  their  party  leaders. 

For  the  most  part,  accordingly,  the  number  of  British 
jobs  will  have  to  depend  upon  the  condition  of  British  in- 
dustry as  a  whole.  That,  in  turn,  must  depend  almost 
entirely  upon  the  opportunities  for  British  sales  in  the 
markets  of  the  world.  The  real  question  then  remains  as 
before,  whether  these  sales  can  be  best  advanced  by  means 
of  the  governmental  or  the  private  operation  of  such  basic 
industries  as  coal,  transportation,  etc. 


HOW  MANY  JOBS  TO  A  NATION?        305 

The  second  consideration  stands  in  the  way  of  success 
by  the  first  of  these  methods  and  to  a  less  extent  in  the 
way  of  success  by  the  second.  It  is  this:  All  groups  of 
people  in  Britain  seem  still  to  accept  and  practise  the  old 
''lump  of  labor"  theory  as  propounded  by  the  early  Enghsh 
economists.  The  whole  British  pubUc,  that  is,  tends  to 
assume  that  in  any  country  the  number  of  jobs  must,  in 
the  nature  of  the  case,  be  definitely  limited  and  fixed — ^must 
be  an  "a"  or  a  ''b"  instead  of  an  "x."  This  backs  up  that 
manifest  "Full  up!"  and  provides  the  social  justification 
of  the  leisure  class,  and  of  the  division  between  one's  real 
interests  and  one's  job.  It  also  helps  to  the  more  or  less 
general  practice  and  acceptance  of  the  idea  of  the  restric- 
tion of  output.  Following  close  upon  all  this  goes  what 
might  be  called  the  "lump  of  trade"  idea — that  the  busi- 
ness of  the  world  also  runs  within  strictly  limited  boun- 
daries. Thus  a  certain  distributor  encountered  a  great  deal 
of  opposition  to  his  estabhshing  a  distribution  centre  in 
London.  It  was  assumed  that  his  entry  would  subtract 
just  exactly  that  much  business  from  those  already  there. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  by  the  exhibition  of  an  amazing  amount 
of  imagination  in  creating  new  wants  in  the  minds  of  the 
district's  buyers  he  felt  that  he  had  considerably  increased 
their  total  expenditures  not  only  for  the  benefit  of  himself 
but  also  of  his  competitors. 

To  be  sure,  this  traditional  "lump  of  labor"  theory  is 
substantiated  by  the  fixedness  of  class  lines.  For  a  most 
serious  factor  of  this  fixedness  is  that  it  comes  to  mean  a 
fixedness  of  class  abiUty  to  develop  wants  and  needs,  and, 
therefore,  to  consume  goods.  Nothing  is  more  certain  than 
that  the  consumer  is  after  all  the  employer  of  the  employer 
and  all  his  employees.  The  number  of  a  country's  jobs,  ac- 
cordingly, becomes  in  a  considerable  degree  fixed  and  lim- 
ited the  moment  the  consumptive  power  is  fixed  for  any 
large  number  of  its  inhabitants.    In  addition  to  this  eco- 


306  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

nomic  evil  of  "class"  a  serious  count  of  the  same  sort  can 
be  made  against  John  Barleycorn.  Without  doubt  he 
serves  immensely  to  prevent  that  expansion  of  consumptive 
power  which  might  otherwise  normally  be  expected  to  fol- 
low upon  the  increased  earning  power  and  purchasing  power 
which  has  come  to  the  British  worker  as  the  result  of  the 
war. 

The  vicious  circle  of  all  this  is  given  a  still  further  twist 
by  that  national  approval  of  playing  safe — of  holding  jobs. 
One  of  the  forms  of  this  is  the  wide-spread  overvaluation 
of  experience  as  compared  with  study.  This  results  in 
building  a  wall  of  discouragement  to  keep  out  those  who 
might  try  to  get  onto  the  job  by  the  paths  of  scientific  train- 
ing. This  discouragement  of  the  scientific  view-point, 
when  taken  into  consideration  with  the  non-expanding 
wants  of  great  groups,  thus  produces  in  actuahty  a  situa- 
tion which  appears  thoroughly  to  justify  the  theory  of  the 
fixedness  of  jobs  and  opportunity. 

Increasing  the  skill  of  the  manager  and  the  inventor 
through  better  technical  and  commercial  education  would 
appear  one  real  way  of  breaking  the  hold  of  that  vicious 
circle.  Luckily  more  and  more  of  the  country's  young  men 
are  entering  the  technical  schools,  and  more  and  more  of 
the  university-bred  men  are  entering  business.  If  the  uni- 
versities could  introduce  more  courses  for  the  psychology  of 
trade  and  its  relationships,  a  very  real  gain  would  doubt- 
less be  made.  For  the  graduates  of  such  courses  would 
wish  to  do  more  than  simply  maintain  the  industrial  enter- 
prise in  the  same  conditions  and  within  the  same  limits  as 
inherited.  That  would  mean  taking  a  risk — setting  at 
naught  the  national  insistence  upon  security.  But  the 
enjoyment  of  that  risk  would  be  necessary  in  order  to  make 
life  interesting  to  the  young  man  who  came  into  the  fac- 
tory or  office  with  a  full  quota  of  technical  training  or  prac- 
tical psychology  itching  for  application.    In  the  face  of 


HOW  MANY  JOBS  TO  A  NATION?         307 

urgent  national  necessity  the  unions  would  also  doubtless 
show  reasonable  willingness  to  relax  their  present  restric- 
tions. 

Without  doubt,  further  greatly  increased  scientific  at- 
tention could  well  be  paid  to  increasing  the  country's  ability 
to  raise  food — ^and  so  to  increase  those  seven  millions  now 
fed  by  the  country's  agriculture.  Just  what  has  become 
of  Lloyd  George's  original  efforts  to  attack  this  problem 
by  increasing  land  values  and  land  taxes,  nobody  seems 
fully  to  understand.  It  is  doubtless  one  of  the  larger 
casualties  of  the  war. 

Perhaps  the  most  valuable  of  the  results  following  upon 
Buch  steps  would  be  the  lessened  pressure  for  jobs  and  the 
consequently  greater  opportunity  for  the  pubhc  to  see  how 
their  number  may  be  affected  by  planning.  Such  observa- 
tion might  help  displace  the  old  idea  of  their  fixedness. 
Such  displacement  appears  to  me  of  the  highest  importance 
not  only  to  the  maintenance  of  a  proper  standard  of  living 
for  Britain's  workers,  but  also  to  nothing  less  than  the 
peace  of  the  world. 


CHAPTER  XII 

THE  DOMESTIC  PAY  ENVELOPE  AND  "INTERNATIONAL 
CREATIVE  EVOLUTION" 

The  British  nation  has  secured  its  commercial  pre- 
eminence mainly  by  means  of  its  ability  to  compete  success- 
fully in  the  international  market.  This  has  come  largely, 
in  turn,  from  the  world-wide  investment  of  British  capital. 
International  financing  has  greatly  helped  to  the  indis- 
pensable international  selling.  Without  doubt,  also,  a  very 
considerable  factor  has  come  from  the  low  price  of  British 
goods,  gained  largely  by  the  low  wages  paid  British  labor. 

That  cheapness  has  heretofore  made  it  largely  unneces- 
sary for  the  British  manufacturer  to  cut  corners  in  costs 
per  ton  by  means  of  either  scientific  production  or  scientific 
distribution.  The  war  has  now  put  an  end  to  cheap  British 
labor.  All  the  force  of  the  British  workers  has  been  strongly 
organized  to  make  effective  resistance  toward  any  attempt 
to  maintain  British  goods  in  world  markets  by  means  of  a 
return  to  the  cheap  British  labor  of  pre-war  times.  The 
question  of  continuing  in  foreign  world  markets  by  means 
of  low  unit  costs  together  with  high  daily  wages  presents, 
therefore,  to  the  British  nation  one  of  the  most  serious 
situations  it  has  ever  known.  One  of  its  university  philos- 
ophers has  lately  said  that  within  a  hundred  years  or  so 
England  would  be  a  clean,  smokeless,  residential  district,  to 
which  the  successful  employers  and  ojfficials  of  the  provinces 
would  retire.  The  manufacturers  of  goods  and  the  work- 
ing population  would  have  left  England  and  gone  out  to 
the  colonies  for  their  raw  materials.  After  the  reduction 
and  fabrication  of  these  into  the  goods  of  commerce,  they 

308 


THE  DOMESTIC  PAY  ENVELOPE  309 

would  be  shipped  directly  to  the  point  of  need.  Word 
comes  from  England  at  this  moment  that  the  necessity  of 
exporting  a  considerable  part  of  the  population  is  already 
receiving  more  serious  ^attention  than  ever  before.  This 
in  itself  is  made  more  than  ordinarily  difficult  as  the  result 
of  the  high  cost  of  ships — and  therefore  of  transportation, 
following  the  high  cost  of  labor.  Unfortunately,  too,  the 
colonies  as  well  as  practically  every  other  part  of  the  world, 
are  equally  afflicted  just  now  with  unemployment. 

But  we  must  not  here  be  led  off  into  discussing  the  far 
future,  nor  into  too  close  a  consideration  of  the  present  and 
more  or  less  transitory  phase  of  unemployment  in  both 
Great  Britain  and  the  rest  of  the  world.  Doubtless  within 
a  year  or  two  the  present  general  unemployment  will  pass. 
Even  after  that,  however,  Great  Britain  will  continue  to  be 
a  land  of  scarce  jobs,  and  also,  probably,  a  land  where  the 
limip  of  labor  and  the  lump  of  trade  theory  will  be  at  the 
base  of  much  of  the  country's  thought  about  itself  and  its 
international  competitors. 

It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  the  peace  of  the  world  will 
be  a  difficult  matter  unless  this  idea  of  the  fixed  limitation 
of  the  number  of  jobs  can  somehow  be  robbed  of  its  inten- 
sity not  only  in  Great  Britain  but  in  other  countries  of 
Europe.  This  can  probably  only  be  accompUshed  by  a 
substitution.  Such  a  substitution  would  put  in  the  place 
of  the  lump  of  labor  and  the  lump  of  trade  ideas  the  philos- 
ophy of  what  might  be  called  "Creative  Evolution  in  Busi- 
ness." This  philosophy  would  propose  that  there  can  be 
no  jfixed  and  limited  number  of  jobs  in  the  world,  and  there- 
fore in  any  nation,  simply  because  there  can  be  no  fixed  and 
limited  number  of  human  needs  and  human  demands  for 
goods  and  services.  To  increase  industrial  jobs,  it  is  only 
necessary  to  make  sure  to  allow  the  free  development  of 
human  needs.  An  industrially  crowded  country,  accord- 
ingly, is  not  a  matter  of  too  many  people  per  square  mile, 


310  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

but  rather  too  many  potential  producers  in  comparison  with 
the  consumption  powers  of  the  accessible  local  or  foreign 
markets. 

Who  can  say  that  1930  may  not  see  the  development  of 
some  now  unknown  field  which,  like  the  motor  industry, 
will  satisfy  an  entirely  new  human  need  and  give  jobs  to 
its  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  ?  Who  knows  but  that 
the  masses  of  China  or  the  islands  of  the  sea  may,  ten 
years  from  now,  consume  milUons  of  pounds  sterUng  of 
goods  which,  though  perfectly  familiar  to  us  to-day,  are 
yet  perfectly  unheard  of  by  them,  or  at  least  quite  definitely 
outside  their  present  powers  of  consumption. 

If  this  is  true,  then  any  people  has  much  to  do  if  it  is  to 
make  sure  that  the  consumptive  powers  of  all  its  groups 
are  constantly  helped  to  enlarge  up  to  the  limits  permitted 
by  that  indispensable  competitive  cost  per  ton,  and  by  the 
equally  insistent  need  of  cheap  capital  to  be  obtained  from 
their  savings.  In  addition,  every  people  through  its  gov- 
ernment or  otherwise,  must  give  close  attention  to  the  con- 
servation of  its  natural  resources.  For  these  provide,  to 
a  great  extent,  the  natural  reservoir  out  of  which  the  nation 
digs  its  jobs.  Still  further,  it  will  be  forced  to  give  close 
attention  to  its  relations  with  the  outer  world.  Otherwise 
it  will  be  unable  to  put  its  industries  into  effective  contact 
with  either  those  fully  developed  nations  or  with  those 
hinterland  peoples  of  the  world  which,  from  year  to  year, 
emerge  at  the  margin  of  interests  and  demands  which  favor 
their  consumption  of  modem  machine-made  goods. 

Such  an  evolving  demand  must,  of  course,  be  met  by 
constantly  increased  scientific  operation  and  scientific  man- 
agement unless  the  competitive  success  is  to  be  won  merely 
by  cheap  labor.  That  alternative  is,  by  all  means,  to  be 
avoided.  In  the  nature  of  the  case,  it  has  to  be  paid  for 
in  terms  of  the  decreased  consumption  powers  of  the  local 
or  domestic  working  millions. 


THE  DOMESTIC  PAY  ENVELOPE  311 

All  this  will  not  at  all  prevent  increased  competition  among 
the  nations,  but  such  increased  competition  will  find  itself 
in  contact  with  constantly  larger  and  larger  markets  built 
up  by  constantly  increased  human  needs.  As  long  as  the 
maximum  of  such  needs  is  in  a  position  to  express  itself, 
a  successful  competitor  might  easily  succeed  either  in  de- 
veloping new  demands,  or  in  cheapening  his  products  to 
new  levels  of  availability.  This  would,  perhaps,  mean  not 
a  lessening  but  an  increase  of  the  business  of  others.  In- 
ternally, accordingly,  each  people  will  have  the  responsi- 
bility of  advancing  the  general  well-being  by  seeing  that 
within  the  national  area  the  results  of  the  evolving  maxi- 
mum of  needs  are  shared  with  the  maximum  of  fairness 
between  producers,  distributors,  and  consumers  at  all  points 
of  the  circle.  The  moment  the  interests  of  any  of  these 
are  unfairly  affected  the  interests  of  all  are  bound  to  suffer. 
It  is  entirely  conceivable  that  something  like  "standard 
wage,  standard  profit,  and  profit-sharing"  will  be  found  to 
assist  effectively  toward  such  fairness.  A  variety  of  plans 
for  fuller  co-operation  between  the  different  groups  could  be 
named.  In  any  event,  when  such  fairness  has  been  ob- 
tained, the  process  of  the  creative  evolution  becomes  a 
circle  beneficent  at  every  point — ^more  buying  power  for  the 
masses,  more  demands  for  goods,  more  jobs,  more  skill  for 
permitting  low  labor  costs  without  low  wages,  cheaper 
products,  more  buying  power,  more  demands,  etc.,  etc. 

At  present  the  tendency  of  governments  to  build  up 
navies  opposes  all  this.  It  is  assumed  that  these  navies 
serve  their  purpose  only  when  the  situation  becomes  acute — 
that  they  are  more  or  less  useless  until  their  guns  are  fired. 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  mere  existence  of  those  guns  is 
utilized  for  its  psychological  power  from  day  to  day  to  back 
up  the  interests  of  the  country's  producers  and  distributors 
in  foreign  markets.  The  moment,  then,  that  a  nation's 
ability   to   meet   international   competition   becomes   en- 


312  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

dangered,  whether  through  the  lack  of  properly  scientific 
processes  of  production  or  distribution,  the  tendency  is 
constantly  to  depend  more  and  more  upon  the  psychologi- 
cal assistance  of  armaments.  Quite  naturally,  therefore, 
the  next  world  war  will  be  a  war  for  jobs — ^unless  the  world 
can  somehow  cease  to  consider  that  the  number  of  jobs  is 
definitely  fixed  and  limited. 

The  great  opportunity,  therefore,  for  the  League  of 
Nations — or  its  substitute — is  to  provide  a  means  whereby 
to  help  develop  the  needs  of  the  various  races,  and  then  to 
aid  in  making  the  circle  of  their  satisfaction  through  the 
industries  of  their  own  or  other  countries  as  universally  fair 
and  beneficent  as  possible.  If  it  did  nothing  more  than 
gather  and  distribute,  on  a  world-wide  basis,  information 
regarding  the  needs,  the  resources,  and  the  capacities  of  the 
different  parts  of  the  complex  world  circle  of  needers  and 
servers,  it  would  become  indispensable,  for  this  of  itself 
would  serve  enormously  to  develop  those  international  ser- 
vices which  are  only  the  reverse  side  of  ifiternational  needs. 
Such  information  and  the  resultant  adjustment  of  services 
and  benefits  might  of  itself  suffice  to  develop  such  under- 
standings as  would  prevent  the  need  of  protecting  jobs  by 
killing  off  or  "hog-tying"  competitors  with  the  help  of 
cannon. 

Even  such  an  information  service  would  also  make  it 
enormously  easier  than  now  for  all  of  us  to  see  that  the 
circle  of  unlimited  creative  evolution  means  that  the  well- 
being — the  maximum  well-being — of  every  nation  is  a  mat- 
ter of  genuine  concern  to  every  other  nation.  The  can- 
celled automobile  orders  from  Great  Britain  brought  the 
first  "lay-offs"  for  America's  workers  in  Detroit  and  Cleve- 
land in  the  fall  of  1920.  Those  cancellations  followed  di- 
rectly upon  the  lowered  value  of  the  pound  sterling.  This 
in  turn  was  one  direct  result  of  the  unhappiness  of  my  miner 
friends  in  South  Wales.    Every  country  is  now  on  the 


THE  DOMESTIC  PAY  ENVELOPE  313 

watch  against  the  admittance  of  the  Bolshevist  agitator. 
But  he  does  no  harm  unless  he  finds  an  audience  among 
great  groups  of  Usteners  who  are  "fair  oon'appy,"  as  in  the 
Rhondda  mining  town.  The  roof  of  Great  Britain  cannot 
suffer  the  cracks  and  strains  produced  by  those  revolution- 
ary songs  of  my  miner  friends  on  "the  bottom"  without 
threatening  the  jobs  of  American  workers.  And  nothing 
threatens  the  normal  current  of  men's  thinking  and  convic- 
tions so  much  as  the  threatening  of  their  jobs.  No  one 
knows  at  this  moment  how  many  months  of  unemployment 
in  America  will  be  required  before  milhons'of  men  may  get 
into  that  same  dangerous  "Fed  up !"  mood.  In  every  part 
of  the  world  the  workers  here  must  have  consumers  there. 
For  ourselves  it  is  said  that  our  productive  capacities,  in- 
creased as  they  have  been  by  the  war,  cannot  be  fully  occu- 
pied unless  fully  20  per  cent  of  our  output  is  exported. 
"British  Strike's  End  Helps  Cotton  Here.  Final  Prices 
Show  Gain  of  19-31  Points,"  according  to  a  Wall  Street 
head-Une  of  June  29. 

The  labor  problem  has  thus  become  before  our  eyes  a 
problem  of  the  relations  no  longer  between  the  employees,  the 
employers,  and  the  pubUc  within  the  national  unit,  but  in- 
stead a  problem  of  the  relations  between  producers,  dis- 
tributers, and  consumers  located  and  expressing  themselves 
and  their  needs  throughout  the  whole  world  circle.  Unless 
these  relations  are  maintained  from  month  to  month  and 
year  to  year  by  that  highly  fragile  twine  of  international 
understanding,  the  hold  of  the  huskiest  palm  upon  the 
heaviest  shovel  in  the  most  remote  ditch  must  be  loosened. 
There  can  to-day,  therefore,  be  no  understanding  of  the 
essentials  of  the  labor  problem  except  as  we  see  it  in  terms 
of  the  international  conditions  which  favor  the  increased 
development  of  world-wide  human  well-being.  That,  and 
that  alone,  is  bound  to  bring  with  it  that  development  of 
increased  himian  needs  which  is  indispensable  to  the  de- 


314  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

velopment  of  increased  facilities  of  production  and  dis- 
tribution for  meeting  them — in  other  words,  of  jobs. 

The  complexity  of  this  new  phase  of  not  only  world  com- 
merce but  of  domestic  commerce  as  well  has  been  de- 
posited upon  the  door-step  not  only  of  the  ordinary  modem 
factory  but  also  of  the  ordinary  modern  home.  It  is 
enough  to  perplex  the  most  intelligent  of  statesmen,  politi- 
cal or  industrial.  It  is  hardly  to  be  solved  simply  by  the 
laborers  taking  over  full  responsibiUty  for  the  solution. 
Not  at  least  as  long  as  the  average  working  man — ^as  also, 
for  that  matter,  the  average  college  graduate — sympathizes 
so  thoroughly  with  the  complaint  of  my  Glasgow  friend: 
"Wy  should  we  bother  with  exchynge?  Wy  not  let  every 
nation  have  its  francs  or  its  dollars  and  we  'ave  our  pounds 
and  pence — and  everybody  go  his  own  wye  and  be  'appy?" 
As  a  matter  of  fact,  I  beUeve  the  American  worker  has  a 
much  greater  desire  to  share  the  satisfactions  of  the  steady 
and  self-respecting  properly  appreciated  job  than  he  has 
to  share  the  management  of  the  enterprise  that  gives  the 
job.  The  British  worker,  being  more  unhappy  with  his 
job  and  its  chances,  feels  more  generally  that  the  only  way 
to  obtain  the  larger  satisfaction  of  the  steady  job  is  for 
him  to  displace  the  inefficient  capitaHst  manager.  On  the 
whole,  it  is  my  belief  that  the  average  American  worker 
would  come  closer  to  succeeding  on  the  job  of  management 
than  would  the  British  worker  of  the  same  or  corresponding 
status.  On  the  other  hand,  I  am  perfectly  sure  that  both 
would  exhibit  amazing  progress  in  their  abiUty  to  handle 
increased  responsibiUty  if  given  now  a  larger  opportunity 
to  share  the  satisfactions  of  the  daily  job  and  its  doing. 
Such  a  gradual  development  of  responsibility  is  more  likely 
to  furnish  a  practicable  way  of  advance  because  its  progress 
and  its  speed  will  depend  upon  the  ability  of  both  managers 
and  workers  to  secure  each  other's  confidence  through  the 
closer  relations  and  the  demonstration  of  their  dependa- 


THE  DOMESTIC  PAY  ENVELOPE  315 

bility  permitted  by  constantly  growing  co-operation  there 
at  the  normal  point  of  contact,  the  job. 

"It  is  idle  to  argue,"  so  Mr.  Hoover  has  said,  "that 
there  are  no  conflicts  between  the  employer  and  the  em- 
ployee. But  there  are  wide  areas  of  activity  in  which  their 
interests  should  coincide,  and  it  is  the  part  of  statesmanship 
to  organize  this  identity  of  interests." 

I  venture  to  assert  that  there  are  not  5  per  cent  of  Ameri- 
can factories  which  could  not  save  great  sums  of  money  if 
they  could  obtain  those  suggestions  for  improving  even  the 
simplest  of  their  jobs  which  would  be  gladly  given  by  em- 
ployees whose  good-will  and  self-respect  had  been  increased 
by  means  of  greater  security  and  responsibihty  in  the  doing 
of  the  daily  job. 

The  same  identity  of  interests  between  the  various  na- 
tions is  to  be  found  not  within  the  factory,  but  within  the 
world  market.  Certainly  that  world  market  is  large  enough 
to  permit  the  utmost  of  friendship  between  Great  Britain 
and  ourselves.  Nothing  so  threatens  the  peace  of  the  world 
at  this  moment  as  the  recent  difficulties  of  understanding 
between  these  two  nations.  Altogether  it  would  look  as 
though  the  threat  made  by  the  Sinn  Feiner  there  at  Glas- 
gow had  been  put  into  operation  and  the  definite  attempt 
made  to  further  war  between  the  two  countries.  But  if 
Great  Britain  and  ourselves,  with  all  that  both  the  present 
and  the  past  have  to  say  about  the  identity  of  our  inter- 
ests, cannot  live  in  peace  with  each  other,  then  this  old 
world  is  not  worth  saving  and  the  late  war  is  proven  the 
most  tragic  joke  of  history ! 

It  is  worth  noticing,  however,  that  it  is  in  trade  and  not 
in  poHtics  that  sore  spots  between  these  two — and  between 
all  other  twos — ^will  threaten.  These  will  threaten  all  the 
more  quickly  if  we  fail  to  appreciate  that  America,  in  com- 
parison with  Great  Britain,  is  the  land  of  the  abundant  job. 
In  all  humiUty,  too,  we  should  appreciate  that  we  five  in 


316  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

the  land  of  the  abundant  job,  not  so  much  because  of  the 
American  view-point  as  because  of  the  American  raw  ma- 
terials, not  so  much  because  of  our  initiative  and  imagina- 
tion as  of  our  iron  ore  and  mountains  of  copper — because 
of  our  natural  rather  than  our  spiritual  resources.  Our  own 
problems  have  been  comparatively  easy  because  until  re- 
cently men  could  find  a  way  out  of  the  evil  conditions  of  a 
factory  or  a  factory  city  y  going  out  to  the  free  land  of 
the  frontier.  Our  frontier  in  America  is  now  gone.  We 
have  therefore  entered  a  new  era  in  our  national  life.  That 
era  brings  with  it,  and  will  increasingly  bring  with  it,  prob- 
lems much  more  nearly  resembling  those  of  a  crowded 
country  than  any  we  have  ever  known  before.  Luckily 
our  producers  and  our  distributers  have  given  to  the  proc- 
esses of  both  production  and  distribution  an  unparalleled 
study.  This  study  has  included  the  phenomena  of  the 
finest  and  most  sensitive  reactions  having  to  do  with  the 
development  and  direction  of  human  needs  in  the  midst 
of  the  human  relations  of  modern  trade  and  commerce. 
As  a  result  of  this,  American  competitors  to-day  accept  and 
practise  to  an  extent  unknown  elsewhere  the  doctrine  of 
creative  evolution.  To  an  extent  unparalleled  elsewhere, 
the  sword  points  of  competitive  business  have  been  beaten 
into  ploughshares  for  cultivating  fresh  crops  of  buyers. 

These  crops,  however,  have  been  grown  mainly  in  the 
home  fields.  As  we  grow  closer  to  the  condition  of  "Full 
up!"  we  must  more  and  more  take  interest  in  the  problem 
of  the  successful  cultivation  of  foreign  markets.  In  all 
ways,  accordingly,  our  problems  will  approach  those  of 
Great  Britain  to-day.  There  it  comes  about  naturally 
enough  that  the  worker  pays  too  much  in  terms  of  Oppor- 
tunity for  his  Security.  Here  we  pay  too  much  in  terms  of 
Security  for  our  Opportunity.  And,  incidentally,  most  of 
us  assume  too  blithely  that  the  opportunity  of  the  old  con- 
tacts in  the  small  machine-shop  is  carried  over  by  some 


THE  DOMESTIC  PAY  ENVELOPE  317 

strange  magic  and  still  exist  in  our  huge  plants  without  the 
necessity  of  organized  attention.  Somewhere  between  these 
two  extremes  Ues  the  efficient  and  happy  nation. 

All  of  us  wish  there  were  some  easy  way  of  achieving  just 
this.  That  wish  is  the  father  of  a  vast  deal  of  thinking 
about  this  system  or  that — something  that  will  somehow 
work  while  we  sleep.  But  "there  ain't  no  such  animal!" 
The  reason  is  that  no  scheme  of  itself  will  work  except  as 
we — all  of  us — put  behind  it  all  the  resources  of  both  our 
minds  and  our  sympathies  in  the  form  of  an  intelligent 
and  kindly  pubhc  opinion.  . 

And  there's  the  rub ! 


CHAPTER  XIII 

CAN  WE  GET  "THE  AIR"  TO  THE  "WORKING  FACES" 
IN  THE  WORLD  FACTORY  MINE? 

Let  me  put  it  this  way: 

In  college  days  I  worked  my  passage  to  Europe  as  "sec- 
ond assistant  scullion"  on  a  cattle  boat.  After  every  meal 
the  pantryman  would  push  back  onto  the  galley  tables 
the  dripping-pans  of  the  roasts  and  other  foods  left  after 
the  first-cabin  passengers  had  been  served. 

"Give  that  to  the  engineer's  mess  to-morrow.  This  for 
first-cabin  soup  to-night."  So  old  Peter,  the  chef,  would 
decree,  like  the  czar  he  was.  "And  that — ^into  the  'black 
pan'  with  it!" 

By  night  the  "black  pan"  would  be  piled  high  with  a 
conglomeration  of  cutlets,  potatoes,  cabbage,  etc.,-  etc. — 
perfectly  good  food  in  the  particular,  but  highly  unappetiz- 
ing in  the  mass.  At  eight  o'clock  there  would  be  a  hesi- 
tating knock  at  the  galley  door. 

"'Tis  oor  turn  for  the  black  pan,  sir!"  would  come  in  a 
whisper  from  a  sailor,  a  stoker,  or  an  oiler. 

"Black-pan  night"  was  feast  night  in  the  forecastle! 
During  the  voyage  the  sailors  mildly  protested  and  marched 
past  the  captain  showing  the  day's  food  as  provided.  They 
asked  for  fresh  bread  once  a  day !  That  instead  of  the  tiny 
loaves  served  only  twice  a  week — I  recall  that  the  first  loaf 
I  ever  saw  when  served  me  as  a  cattleman  the  summer 
preceding  looked  like  salvation  from  starvation,  because 
the  food  had  been  practically  uneatable.  I  heard  the 
pantryman  say,  the  night  of  the  "mutiny"  that  before  he'd 

318 


CAN  WE  GET  "THE  AIR"?  319 

serve  fresh  bread  daily,  he'd  "see  the  bloody  devils  in  'ell 
first!"  Every  night  of  the  voyage  my  mouth  watered  as 
I  watched  him  eating  the  ice-cream  which  never  was  allowed 
to  enter  the  galley. 

How  could  such  amazing  differences  in  conditions  exist 
on  shipboard  after  they  had  been  so  largely  abohshed  else- 
where? Because  a  ship  suffers  always  from  a  bad  case  of 
what  can  be  called  "compartment-itis."  PubUc  opinion 
on  board  would  correct  the  stuation  quickly  if  it  had  the 
information,  but  pubhc  opinion  was  deaf,  blind,  and 
dumb — therefore  powerless — ^because  on  the  ordinary  ship 
it  did  not  have  the  facts.  The  eason  it  did  not  have  the 
facts  is  because  steel  partitions  keep  all  the  different  groups 
apart — ^miles  apart  psychologically,  though  often  scarcely 
an  eighth  of  an  inch  apart  in  actuality. 

Now  the  problem  of  successful  ship  operation  does^'not 
require  suddenly  asking  the  stokers  to  come  up  and  sit  in 
the  passengers'  chairs,  nor  to  have  them  and  the  sailors  and 
the  oilers  form  a  committee  to  supplant  the  captain.  It 
does  involve,  doubtless,  some  plan  of  representative  dealing 
whereby  each  group  as  a  whole  can  have  something  to  say 
about  the  conditions  of  its  work — ^that  is,  about  the  giving 
of  its  golden  egg  of  service.  It  also  requires  making  sure 
that  the  passengers  themselves  in  one  form  or  another, 
contribute  their  just  quid  pro  quo  for  their  leisurely  enjoy- 
ment of  the  chairs.  But  most  of  all,  the  successful  opera- 
tion and  safety  of  the  ship — and  that  means  everybody^on 
it — requires  that  each  shall  have  an  intelUgent  and  sympa- 
thetic understanding  of  the  service  performed  by  all  the 
others,  and  so  be  able  to  award  proportionate  recognition 
of  that  service  in  terms  of  wages,  hours,  conditions,  leisure, 
and  partnership — all  the  forms  that  finally  spell  satisfactions. 
Without  this  proportionate  recognition  of  our  worth  as 
obtained  by  the  demonstration  of  our  service,  the  main- 
spring within  each  and  all  of  us  refuses  to  release  its  energy. 


320  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

Each  of  us  continues  to  lay  the  golden  egg  of  our  service 
only  as  long  as  we  observe  a  satisfactory  proportion  between 
our  individual  effort  and  our  individual  result. 

A  better  balance  of  interests  in  that  circle  of  needs  and 
services  is  urgently  called  for.  But  neither  government,  man- 
agers, statesmen,  workers,  nor  consumers  can  work  out  this 
matter  of  balanced  recognitions  of  comparative  services  by 
themselves  alone.  Laws  may  or  may  not  help — in  the  long 
run  it  requires  an  intelligent  and  sympathetic  pubHc  opin- 
ion. In  whatever  form  of  society  we  adopt,  the  whole  ad- 
justment of  the  machine  will  depend  upon  that. 

What  we  have  failed  to  see  is  that  this,  in  itself,  has  be- 
come an  amazingly  difficult  affair  within  the  past  few  years. 
As  the  heirs  of  all  the  ages,  and  especially  of  an  industrialized 
and  internationaUzed  world,  present-day  society  suffers 
from  as  bad  a  case  of  "compartment-itis"  as  the  worst  and 
the  oldest  of  ocean  liners. 

The  living  compartment  of  the  worker  is  made  enormously 
difficult  of  access  by  his  working  compartment  in  modern 
specialized  industry.  Yet  somehow  or  other  that  propor- 
tionate recognition  must  be  got  through  to  the  worker  at 
his  work  if  he  is  to  be  happy  in  making  his  contribution — 
his  indispensable  contribution. 

Take  the  coal-miner,  for  instance.  He  constitutes,  in 
my  opinion,  one  of  the  most  pressing  and  dangerous  prob- 
lems in  modern  society.  The  real  reason  is  that  his  job 
takes  him  away  off  into  a  separate  town  in  an  isolated  part 
of  the  country,  and  then  carries  him,  first,  a  thousand  feet 
into  the  ground,  and  then  a  mile  or  two  back  into  a  dark, 
small  room.  By  the  necessities  of  his  service  he  Uves,  as 
it  were,  in  our  very  cellars — we  cannot  live  without  him. 
Yet  we  never  see  him.  How  can  we  get  through  from  him 
our  understanding  of  the  compulsion  of  his  job,  which  de- 
termines the  conditions  not  only  of  his  living,  but  of  his 
thinking?    And  then  how  can  we  get  through  to  him  our 


CAN  WE  GET  "THE  AIR"?  321 

consequent  recognition  of  his  worth  and  his  right  to  a  normal 
Ufe? 

Well,  the  mining  engineers  have  had  the  same  problem 
with  ventilation.  In  the  old  days  it  was  considered  enough, 
in  a  small  and  simple  mine,  to  change  the  air  in  the  main 
butts  and  headings.  To-day  the  miner  who  feels  any  stop- 
page of  air  "at  the  face"  immediately  stops  work.  It  is 
there  that  the  gas  comes  from  the  coal;  it  is  from  there  it 
must  be  removed.  Elaborate  laws  lay  down  the  number  of 
feet  at  which  a  "break-through"  must  be  placed  whereby 
the  air  is  continuously  circulated  right  up  to  the  face  and 
away.  The  "bradish-man,"  or  carpenter,  knows  that  the 
greatest  of  disasters  can  come  if,  by  his  carelessness,  some 
door  leaks  and  the  air  can  short-circuit  itself  in  other  chan- 
nels than  up  to  and  past  the  "working  faces." 

To-day  all  of  us  millions  who  earn  our  hving  above  ground 
are  working  in  a  vast  and  complicated  array  of  rooms  in  the 
world-wide  mine  of  modern  industry.  In  the  main  butts 
and  headings — at  the  town  hall,  the  polls,  the  school,  cham- 
ber of  commerce,  the  club,  the  church — ^we  meet  each  other 
and  come  to  know  and  be  known.  Our  doings  there  give 
slight  chance  for  danger.  But  at  the  "working  faces"  away 
back  in  the  darkness  of  some  highly  specialized  job — like  the 
docker's  or  the  hobo's,  or  the  twelve-hour  steel  worker's — 
men  put  their  picks  into  the  tiny  pockets  of  danger-gas. 
SUght  volatile  little  sensations  of  fatigue  or  discouragement, 
unsatisfied  hopes,  misunderstandings,  suspicions — ^these  can 
never  be  carried  away  until  somehow  we  can  get  the  air  of 
public  understandings — and  recognitions — ^better  circulated 
than  at  present. 

Because  of  this,  public  thinking  finds  it  diflSicult  to  under- 
stand the  thoughts  of  men,  not  only  on  their  jobs  but  in 
their  more  general  lives  as  citizens.  For  in  these  days  it 
is  impossible  for  men  to  show  their  qualities  as  citizens  very 
far  apart  from  their  qualities  as  workers.    We  Uve  our  way, 


322  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

it  cannot  be  repeated  too  often,  into  all  the  rooms  of  our 
thinking  infinitely  more  than  we  think  our  way  into  the 
rooms  of  our  Uving.  For  practically  everybody,  compara- 
tively speaking,  the  most  driving  part  of  the  living  of  our 
life  is  there  in  the  rooms  where  we  earn  our  living. 

At  this  moment  there  is  huge  danger  in  the  world  factory 
mine  because  ventilation  has  not  kept  up  with  the  elabora- 
tion of  modem  life  and  work.  A  vast  quantity  of  men's 
recognition  and  understanding  of  each  other  is  being  short- 
circuited  away  from  "the  working  faces."  As  the  result, 
men  are  showing  less  interest  in  their  jobs.  Then  other  mil- 
lions use  that  lessened  activity  as  an  argument  to  prove  that 
men  never  want  to  work  anyway — that  human  beings  always 
follow  the  Hne  of  least  resistance.  That  is  a  lie  !  Men  fol- 
low the  line,  not  of  least  resistance,  hut  the  line  of  utmost  recog- 
nitions and  satisfactions  per  unit  of  effort  expended.  When 
the  recognitions  are  short-circuited  away  from  the  face, 
then,  of  course,  men  think  of  laying  aside  their  tools. 

The  public  controls.  The  public  must  understand  its 
job  just  now  is  to  get  the  circulation  restored.  It  must  have 
a  larger  faith  in  those  who  are  too  far  away  for  it  to  see. 
It  must  fortify  that  faith  with  a  better  understanding  of 
their  service,  and  it  mu^t  get  the  manifestation  of  that 
larger  faith  in  terms  of  recognition  to  the  workers  at  their 
work.  In  any  system  of  society  it  will  be  just  as  essential 
and  just  as  diflSicult.  It  is  too  late  to  try  to  solve  the  prob- 
lem by  going  back  to  the  point  where  every  worker  was  an 
individual  craftsman  working  in  his  own  shop  on  the  open 
street.  That  meant  too  high  costs — and  these  meant  the 
denial  of  great  fields  of  service  to  milUons.  It  is  the  de- 
mands of  those  needs  of  inexpensive  services  which,  after 
all,  are  at  the  bottom  of  our  "compartment-itis."  We  must 
accept  it  but  conquer  and  subdue  it. 

"Alius  mind  thot  ye  keep  goin'  with  the  air  in  yer  face !" 
said  the  old  repairer,  down  in  the  darkness  one  day,  when  I 


CAN  WE  GET  ''THE  AIR"?  323 

asked  how  a  fellow  could  get  out  of  a  mine  after  he  had 
lost  his  light. 

Men  will  march  by  millions  straight  up  to  the  cannon's 
mouth,  if  only  as  they  move  they  can  feel  upon  their  faces 
the  breath  of  your  recognition  and  mine  of  the  glory  of  their 
exploit — ^an  exploit  made  possible  only  by  the  nobihty  of 
their  souls. 

The  same  hope  and  hunger  is  in  the  same  hearts  when 
men  arise  for  the  daily  job  while  the  whistle  blows  or  the 
'* knocker-up"  pursues  his  noisy  way.  These  men  them- 
selves are  no  different  from  the  craftsmen  and  artificers  of 
old.  Their  prayer — and  therefore  their  power — is  the 
same.  It  is  we  and  our  distance  from  them  on  the  other 
side  of  those  thin  steel  compartments  of  modem  life  who 
make  more  difficult  the  answer  of  that  prayer.  And  with- 
out some  answer  to  that  prayer  the  whole  great  wheel  of 
the  world's  life  and  happiness  begins  to  slow  down. 

"Let  us  now  praise  famous  men 
Even  the  artificer  and  workmaster, 
That  passeth  his  time  by  night  as  by  day; 
They  that  cut  gravings  of  signets, 
And  his  diligence  is  to  make  great  variety; 
He  setteth  his  heart  to  preserve  likeness  in  his  portraiture, 
And  is  wakeful  to  finish  his  work. 

So  is  the  smith  sitting  by  the  anvil. 

And  considering  the  unwrought  iron; 

The  vapour  of  the  fire  wasteth  his  flesh, 

And  in  the  heat  of  the  furnace  doth  he  wrestle  with  his  work; 

The  noise  of  the  hammer  is  ever  in  his  ear, 

And  his  eyes  are  upon  the  pattern  of  the  vessel. 

He  setteth  his  heart  upon  perfecting  his  works, 

And  is  wakeful  to  adorn  them  perfectly. 

So  is  the  potter  sitting  at  his  work. 

And  turning  the  wheel  about  with  his  feet, 

Who  is  always  anxiously  set  at  his  work, 


324  FULL  UP  AND  FED  UP 

And  all  his  handiwork  is  by  measure; 
He  fashioneth  the  clay  with  his  arm, 
And  bendeth  its  strength  in  front  of  his  feet; 
He  applieth  his  heart  to  finish  the  glazing, 
And  is  wakeful  to  make  clean  the  furnace. 

All  these  put  their  trust  in  their  hands, 

And  each  becometh  wise  in  his  own  works. 

Yes,  though  they  be  not  sought  for  in  the  council  of  the  people, 

Nor  be  exalted  in  the  assembly; 

Though  they  sit  not  on  the  seat  of  the  judge, 

Nor  understand  the  covenant  of  judgment; 

Though  they  declare  not  instruction  and  judgment, 

And  be  not  found  among  them  that  utter  dark  sayings; 

Yet  without  these  shall  not  a  city  be  inhabited. 

Nor  shall  men  sojourn  or  walk  up  and  down  therein. 

For  these  maintain  the  fabric  of  the  world 

And  in  the  handiwork  of  their  craft  is  iheir  prayer." 

— Ecdesiasticus, 


UC  SOUTHERN  REGIONAL  LIBRARY  FACILITY 


A     000  756  657     3 


